


You Were You

by fated_addiction, oxymoronassoc



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond (Movies) RPF, james bond/eva green - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-20 23:23:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2446892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction, https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronassoc/pseuds/oxymoronassoc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eva Green is stalked by James Bond. Daniel Craig is confused. James Bond is even more confused because, well, it's her. And she should be dead. Instead, she's a movie star.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning After the End

1.

They are not supposed to meet.

Ghosts are ghosts. He has loved her already, once before, a long time ago, and has her buried back in his mind, underneath the very few memories that he keeps around to remind himself exactly who he is these days. He does not remember the sound of her voice, or how she laughs, or even something as simple as how she might’ve smiled at him. He is not a romantic. He knows she lives on in a file in the archives where, if anything, is the kindest thing he’s ever done for her.

And she, she is in love with another man, a different man, a man that smiles and laughs and makes her hate her very existence. You read too much, Green. You smoke too much. That damn dog; there is too much affection and it is far too late to go back. Separately, she is the one that is the romantic.

There is far too little here that isn’t about irony, or is, or maybe it’s walked into open wounds and odd adventures – if he asked her, if Bond was still a man, she would tell him that she prefers the company of her dog and staying home to read. If he were a man, that other man, he would laugh all the same.

This is the mistake.

 

 

2.  
He first sees her in Paris.

No – that's not true.

He's seen fleeting glimpses of her face in subways, on newsstands, on billboards, but his eyes and mind never made the connection. He was always busy, always on a mission, always looking somewhere else, just catching fragments of her image from the corner of his eye. But he first truly sees her and makes the connection in Paris. He's on a job, a routine mission, which of course is anything but routine. He's following an informant through the busy sidewalks, head down, moving forward.

He first catches her from the corner of his eye, a swirl of dark hair that makes his nostrils flare but he thinks it's just a trick, a cruel sort of one, but one that his mind plays on him from time to time, though less and less as the years go by. He shakes it off, follows his prey. Still, he can't shake the feeling, that this was more than coincidence.

So when he sees her a second time, in London, walking along the street as fine as you please, he abruptly deviates from his mission. The man in the cafe can wait. This can't.

He follows her casually, studying the way she walks, trying to remember if it looks the same, but he finds he can't remember how she walked. It's all just vague impressions now, specificity faded into generalness, a few memories lovingly replayed over and over again until they're worn, bright and hard. He expects the woman to turn, to look to cross the road, to double-take at a shop front, so he can see her face and realize it isn't her face, it isn't her, and that the world is as it's always been.

She pauses at a crossing, turns her face to him profile, and raises a hand to brush errant dark hair off of her face as she squints into the sun. It's her.

"Vesper," he says, quietly, low and angry. The woman doesn't seem to hear him or she's ignoring him because, when the light turns, she moves forward. Bond follows her, his feet propelling him forward, his senses alert for a trap. This cannot be real. This cannot have happened. His mind is blank except for the quarry in front of him. There are no thoughts of revenge or what he'll do next, just that he has found her and now he has to catch her.  
He realizes as he follows her that saying her name was a mistake and slows down his pace to follow her less obviously. His mind has begun to formulate a plan. She pauses finally outside the gate of one of the houses in the row that line either side of the street, digging in her handbag for something--keys--before she unlatches the gate and crosses the front garden and goes into the house. He continues on, noting the number, the sort of windows she has, the lock on her front door, that the sound of a small, excited dog barking has just started up from inside. He shakes his head, moves on down the street.

He tails her for a week. She doesn't seem to notice. Her schedule, for the most part, seems fairly regular. She walks the dog most mornings, gone for an hour to forty-five minutes. That she has a dog is surprising in and of itself. But this is a small dog, a scruffy little terrier that bounces at the end of its leash. She talks to it, in English but also in French, the cooing baby talk of a proud parent. The image of her with the dog shakes him.

On the fifth day of watching her, he breaks into her house when she isn't home. It isn't hard. The locks are average. It's one of those older houses that litter London. He didn't expect that of her either. He expected something cool, sleek, shiny. A flat near the river, in one of the high-rises. Like he has. But instead she's in Primrose Hill with all the yuppies and celebrities. The front door gives onto a small foyer with two more doors. The house has been divided into two flats. He chooses the garden flat, picking the lock with ease.

The inside of the house isn't what he expects either. Logically he knows that they'll have created a new identity for her with the furnishings to match, but after all these years, there should be something of her to the place. She wasn't that good of a liar. The living room is long, with a high ceiling. The horizontal surfaces of the room are cluttered with bric-brac: pictures, books, folded over news papers. Paintings, some framed, some just the stretched canvases, lean up against the wall with a casualness that speaks of being deliberately placed. More hang on the wall. One of the short walls has been built into a bookcase, crammed with all kinds of books--paperbacks, hardbacks, coffee table books, in varying states of repair, jumbled together without much sense to order. The room is soft, inviting, cozy, well-lived in.

He pauses at the mantel of the fireplace, which is filled with a huge vase of flowers instead of the usual empty grate, and studies the pictures in their mismatching frames. There's one of the dog. One of a couple he doesn't recognize and dismisses after memorizing their faces. One of an older woman, smiling up at the camera, caught in the act of snipping roses in a garden. There is another again of the woman from the unknown couple and her, they're laughing at something, wearing paper hats. They look too much alike. Sisters? No. Had these all been doctored by the art department? And after all this time, she's just left them sitting here, well-dusted and prominent? He looks at his watch. He leaves the photographs.

Her kitchen holds little interest for him. She likes wines, but indiscriminately. Her fridge holds an average amount of food. There is nothing remarkable, aside from the matching ceramic dishes, printed with a paw print, that sit off to one side of the cabinets. A small black leather diary sits on the counter near where a mobile phone charger is plugged into the wall. He leafs through it, scanning the entries. He takes a picture of the next two weeks with his phone before closing it and replacing it exactly where it had been.

Her bathroom similarly disinterests him. He goes through her medicine cabinet, looks at her prescriptions, touches her makeup, reading the brands. He smells her shampoo and it's jarring and wrong. The same with her bodywash. He grimaces and replaces them. On the back of the door hangs a terrycloth dressing gown where he expected silk.

He can feel the clock ticking. Her bedroom door is shut and he opens it carefully, in case it squeaks. It doesn't. The room is neat and tidy and serene. It's not feminine nor is it sleek. There is no feeling of luxury, just comfort. He touches her duvet, the sheets, rests his hand for a moment on the pillow on the side of the bed that has the most clutter on the nightstand before he drags his eyes back up to scan the room again. It agitates him, this soothing comfort.

Her drawers and closet are stuffed full. A number of Dior items hang carefully to one side and he fingers the expensive fabric. This was more what he expected. She wears expensive French underwear, but he already knew that.

He leaves the way he came in, locking the doors behind himself. He walks away from her flat slowly, casually, just another man about town studying his mobile phone.

 

3.  
Eva sees him. Or she thinks she does. She thinks nothing of it either. It happens that she is walking through her errands, her cigarette dying in between her fingers and poor Griffin against his leash; both are oh so tired.  
The groceries are tired against her hip and Mr. Williamson stops her, asking, “my wife thinks you’re brilliant, when’s the next film?” when she’s struggling with her milk. It’s something simple, and she likes that it’s something simple, prefers it, needs it, and it’s sort of how he comes into the picture anyway.

Across the street, Daniel is watching her from the fence.

This is only a week. It’s just the park, after all.

 

The third or fourth week she cannot ignore him, she has to call him. He is suddenly everywhere and she cannot explain. The store. Her flat – her flat seems different all of the sudden, and it’s hard, so hard, because it’s only place that really everything is hers. But he’s not stupid and she knows that he knows; she just doesn’t understand why.

This is too much. She doesn’t care if he’s Daniel Craig and if this is his way of trying to be funny and a terrible friend.

“What are you doing?” she asks, and there’s a laugh, soft, sleepy, and too amused. She is suddenly imaging him in bed, in a hotel room somewhere far, far enough, his hand sprawled against his stomach, his fingers stroking his skin lazily.

“This is low,” she says too. “Even for you,” she bites.

He chuckles. “Green, you’ve totally lost it.”

They’ve had this conversation before. She can almost hear him going over it in his head, the nuisances, the slight changes of pitch in her voice, the way she frowns – it’s his, it’s all his and that hasn’t changed between the two of them at all.

“I thought you were away,” she mutters.

“No,” he says. There is a soft murmur. He’s not alone, she thinks. “M’home,” he says. “For a little while, at least. There’s press and more press and – well, I’ll be busy I suppose.”

“Good to know.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

She sighs.

“Nothing,” she tries again. “It’s nothing. I just – it’s been an odd sort of day, you know? We all have them, odd days, the kind of days that just seem to go on endlessly and you’re – I don’t know. You make me ramble a lot, you know.”

She almost hears the smile in his voice.

“I’m terrible at being worried,” he says to her, and it’s soft, too soft, but what’s there is there – he is too good at this, too good at being ambiguous with too much meaning. But he sighs and she listens to the sound of sheets, blankets, settling. “You do know that, right?”

She is surprised and uncomfortable. It happens suddenly and she is staring into the mirror in bathroom, her eyes wide. Her dog emerges too, running himself against her legs.

Eva forces herself to swallow. “Stop then,” she murmurs.

 

It’s rather unfortunate that she sees him. Then again, he isn’t surprised. She doesn’t surprise him anymore. It’s been years. He isn’t trying to hide either. Rather, it’s about her seeing him, her acknowledging him, even though she’s dead, supposed to be dead, and it’s not supposed to make him this angry.

He is there though when her hair goes from red to black to red again, long and soft, and manages to watch his own fingers tense, clutch, and close into a tight, tight fist. He isn’t panicking. No, no, non. He doesn’t panic; this is double-oh-seven, and M will be terribly miffed to know that he is slowly and surely losing his goddamn mind.

The restaurant is definitely his fault.

“Her,” he says to the waiter. “A glass of champagne. The most expensive, preferably,” he says too. His nose wrinkles and he pretends to be uncomfortable and nervous. “I cannot, for the life of me, remember the name though –”

“Don’t worry, sir,” the waiter says excitedly, and then rushes off to the bar, to where she stands, looking down almost absently.

The exchange is rather curious: he watches, waits, and sees the man pop open a bottle, grab a flute, and saunter over to her as if she should expect this. And she should, he thinks. Vesper, the Vesper that he almost knew would’ve watched and waited, her mouth twisted into a tight, sardonic smile that hurts and intrigues all the same.

When the waiter puts the glass in front of her, she looks surprised. Bond leans back against his chair. The corners of his mouth twist and when the waiter turns back, pointing at him, he allows himself to watch her. She doesn’t smile.

Her eyes are dark. Her fingers touch the glass, but she doesn’t pick it up. She looks angry. She looks hurt and completely confused. She shakes her head and then pushes the glass back at the waiter, murmuring something to him. He does not have time to care because another man then comes and grabs her elbow.

He watches her disappear into the crowd.

The waiter comes back to his table, flushed. “Sorry, sir. She said that – she wasn’t – she isn’t.” The man sighs. “She said that she isn’t a fan of champagne and that you – you know that.”

Bond’s mouth twitches.

 

“You need to stop,” she presses angrily. It is the only time sees Daniel in London, and he is sitting over her kitchen table, Griffin nipping at his legs. The dog yaps and Daniel snorts, leaning over and sinking his hands into his fur.

“Stop what?” he asks.

Eva is exasperated. Her hand waves around the room and he raises an eyebrow, shrugging. There are no signs on his face, she thinks. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know. He is just trying to make her crazy.

It makes her look for the faintest hint of a smile; she knows that when he’s lying to her, his mouth twists slightly, ever so slightly, and he can’t quite look at her because he knows she’s going to catch him lying anyway. But when he looks up at her, he’s confused, his mouth curled, and then it’s Griffin that jumps between them.

“What’s wrong?” He pushes himself off the table. “You have that panicked look now – what did I forget?”

“Ass,” she murmurs, and it’s affectionate. She leans back against the counter, shaking her head. “Nothing,” she says. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

The anger is still there. She can taste it, and there’s something misplaced about the whole thing; she sees him again in the back of mind, him but not him, watching her across the restaurant – and that champagne, so patronizing and so like him. It’s confusing and it’s frightening and she isn’t sure what’s going on in her head.

She plays along. “I am – tired,” she finishes. “You leave anyway for New York soon, right?”

“In the afternoon.”

“So soon,” she says dryly.

“It’s not a social visit.” He rolls his eyes.

He joins her then. His hands slip into his pockets and he starts to rock back against his heels.

“You would tell me,” he says. She blinks. “ – if, if there was something wrong, yeah?”

“I – ” and for a moment, she’s not entirely sure what to say back. Yes. No. You are making me absolutely mad and I don’t know what else to do about it. She wants a confession. She wants to go and shake him, tell him a number of things that have nothing, absolutely nothing with what’s happening right now.

She bites her lip.

“Of course.” She is awkward. “I’m a terrible liar, darling.”

You really don’t know, she doesn’t say.

 

4.  
She recalls him to the office with a terse voicemail.

That she called at all speaks volumes. Hers is the one request he cannot ignore. Besides, it’s not so much a request as an order.

He presents himself promptly at her office the next morning. He hardly merits a second glance. It isn’t like he looks like he’s gone slightly rogue, in his well-cut suit and smartly shined shoes, and it isn’t like it’s something M is going to advertise to anyone she doesn’t have to. The habits of double-ohs are as hush hush as their missions. As long as they get the job done, that’s all that matters. Or that’s the official line anyway. But Bond knows better. M expects more. And she’s not going to be pleased.

He’s five minutes early to his appointment with her and still Moneypenny tells him to take a seat. She’s unusually silent, glancing at him through her fringe now and again as she types rapidly at her computer.

“I take it the old lady isn’t pleased then?” he says finally, trying for a bored drawl that falls flat even to his ears.  
“No, James,” Moneypenny replies with a shake of her head. “Not in the least.”

“Damned well deserves it,” he mutters under his breath as Moneypenny’s phone rings.

“You can go in now,” she says.

He takes his time, rising slowly, adjusting his waistcoat, jacket, tie, cuffs, before he opens the plate glass door and steps into M’s office.

“You wanted to see me?” he says with a studied casualness.

“Yes. Sit down,” M barks, letting the manila folder whose contents she was reading drift closed.

He sits, props one ankle on his knee, purses his lips, and gives her one of his coldest, blandest stares.

“I see you know what I want to speak with you about already. Good. No need to mince words or dance around this business. Frankly, James, I’m surprised. I had thought better of you. And in the middle of a mission too.”

He has the gall to shrug. He’s angry, angrier than he’s been in a long time. It feels good. “Something came up. It seemed important.”

“Seemed important?” She’s fairly quivering with rage behind her huge desk. “What could possibly be more important than the mission?”

“I think you know,” he replies coldly, standing up and tugging his jacket into place. “I will finish the mission. Do not worry yourself.”

M lets him go, her face set in hard lines. As soon as the outer office door has closed behind him, she picks up the phone. “Moneypenny, get me John in surveillance. Also, I want you to ask for Eva Green’s file to be sent up.” She pauses for a long moment, but Moneypenny holds the line. M sighs, sounding terribly tired as she rubs her forehead with her hand. “And the rest of it. That is all.”

 

"I thought he'd let her go," M says to her husband as she rubs lotion into her hands, perched on the edge of the bed. "Or at the very least, put it to the back of his mind."

"Hmm," he replies sleepily, already just a lump beneath the duvet.

"I really did. I thought this was all over the past. Of course I knew about his yearly visit--to her grave. But I allowed that. Maybe I shouldn't have," She sighs and screws the lid back onto the jar of cream, staring out at the dark curtains over the window. "He's going to ruin himself and destroy her in the process. Just like last time." She gives the bedside lamp cord a vicious tug and the room falls into shadows. "Tell me," she asks the dark, "how do I kill a ghost?"

 

It’s a museum next. There is an exhibition, and it’s Van Gogh’s letters in a glass case, sprawled and staring back at her, that catches him again. Maybe later, Eva will remember irony.

This is the first time he is really this close.

“I never thought of you to be of this sort,” he says, and his voice is low, dry. Daniel is handsome. Or not Daniel, she thinks. He is in a suit, half-hidden by a dark grey coat and a sense of self that seems entirely misplaced next to her. He feels larger than life and unspeakably far away. She doesn’t understand.

“Of this sort?” she asks, and she is playing along. She glances up at him. Her mouth twists. “I suppose, then, I’ve disappointed you.”

He chuckles. “Immensely.”

Her hair falls into her eyes. “Damn,” she says.

They’re quiet and she wonders what’s next. Does she ask him – what the hell are you going about? Are you really that cruel? And she manages to imagine Daniel answering her in a very Daniel sort of way; tirelessly, effortlessly, not at all like this man who seems completely and utterly unable to just smile.  
She fidgets though. Her gaze stills on the glass, studying his reflection. He seems to be watching her back like the bar, like those few times she’s caught him following her. She licks her lips.

“Are we going to keep doing this?” she blurts.

“This?”

Her hand waves between them. Her mouth opens again and there are students suddenly, laughter loud, the teacher whispering hard, and Eva finally notices the array of glass cases flanking them. There is Van Gogh himself, his face painted and sprawled over a wall in front of him. She cannot imagine the two of them here, she thinks.

“I don’t know.” She looks back at him. “I –”

His lips curl.

“What?” she says.

“Nothing,” he says, and his voice is curt. There’s amusement but it’s gone, there and then away, and he steps back. He is straightening his coat before she even realizes it.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

He stops. “Doesn’t matter?”

She blinks. Daniel, she almost says. Daniel. Somehow she knows he won’t answer to that; that it has to a part of whatever horrible, horrible plan he’s decided to play. Her head starts to hurt and today was just supposed to be able getting away. A part of her, a large part of her is pushing into panic, heavy panic, and it’s why her mother, her sister, everyone is always surprised that she is still is acting.

“Are you going to keep this up?” Her hand brushes against her throat. She rubs it lightly. “I mean, honestly.”

He looks at her strangely. Then he draws himself up to full height, half-pulling himself over her. He’s imposing and she’s suddenly startled, confused as he reaches over. His fingers sweep against her jaw. She flushes.

His hand drops. “You’re different,” he says, and quietly. Behind him, the laughter of the schoolchildren breaks in.  
She’s distracted, catching a few looks from some of the students. When she turns back, Daniel is walking away.  
She does not know what this means.

 

He storms into her office a few days or weeks later. He doesn’t have an appointment, but she has been expecting him.

“You knew,” he spits out, flinging a folder of papers and pictures onto her desk. He braces his palms on either side of it and leans over the expensive modern piece towards the woman who sits behind it. "You knew and you never said anything."

She stares back at him levelly. "Really, Double Oh Seven. Do sit down. It will get you no further to loom over me." She swivels slightly in her chair to click her mouse a few times before she turns back to him, her expression alone forbearing him further comment. "Yes, I knew. Of course I knew. It's my job to know. I didn't tell you because you didn't need to know. I didn't think it was important."

"Didn't think--" he sputtered, face flushed with anger.

"Don't count me for a fool, Bond," she snapped. "I made the call. You didn't need this kind of distraction. Besides," her face softened, "Really, what would you have done with the information? They aren't the same person. She's a movie star, for god's sake. Leave her alone. Let her live her life." She pauses, sighs. "She's never going to live up to your memory."

Bond's mouth sets in a mulish line, ever the petulant child, but he's not foolish enough to try to spar with her. "I understand," he says curtly. "You were just doing your job."

"Yes, I was, and if you ever question my judgment again..." The threat hangs unspoken in the air. "I suggest you get on with your job."

This is his dismissal and he recognizes it as such, rising from the uncomfortably square leather chair and stalking out the door. It closes with a soft pneumatic clunk that is unsatisfying.

"I'm going to work from home," he tells Moneypenny curtly.

Moneypenny just smiles and raises her eyebrows. "Don't drink too much, James," she says. "It's not worth it. She's been in a foul mood all day."

"Of course she has," he says smoothly, summoning up that charming grin he's known for. It falls from his face the moment he turns away and leaves the outer office.

 

Later, when she is out at an appointment, he will break into her flat again and ransack it hoping to find the vital clue that will reveal who she really is. He will not make the same mistake a second time.

 

Eva ignores his calls.

It’s the best way, she decides. He calls from New York, then when he’s back in London – by accident, Satsuski spots her during errands and mentions she’s seen him, only to pick up some of their paintings at their flat.  
But she’s due at an engagement, and the party is a rather quiet affair, her dress slipping along her legs as she sneaks outside to have a cigarette. She wears silk because it’s easy and it’s Dior because it’s the commitment. Her hand is trembling and her anxiety is too high; it’s all part of the job, she still tells herself. She does not feel beautiful.

“You’re terrible at this,” he says from behind her, and she stiffens, leaning against the balcony railing. She doesn’t remember where she’s left her coat. “Avoiding me, sneaking out – shall I commit that to a list for you, Green?”

She snorts. “Says the man who is stalking me.”

He scoffs.

Her fingers curl around her cigarette case and she pulls one out, slipping it into her mouth. She doesn’t light it, not yet, her eyes settling on the city as it sways quietly in front of her.

London isn’t Paris, but it is the closest that she considers to having a home, nearly undemanding. She watches the lights of the buildings and the homes, the lines of cars that slowly, almost impossibly roll forward, all careless and unconvinced.

“What did I do, Green?”

“Why do you call me Green?” she asks suddenly. Her eyes close. She listens to him fidget next to her. “I mean, I suppose it’s some sort of odd, endearing way that you express your affection – other than your terrible, childish need to.”

His brow furrows. He digs out a lighter from his pocket, thrusting it into her palm. Her eyes open and she shakes her head, her lips curling. Ass, she thinks.

“You are – ”

“Handsome,” he interjects. “Witty. Fun. I put up with your bloody dog, insufferable as he is.”

She rolls her eyes. “You like him.”

She relaxes too, maybe briefly, the taste of smoke slipping against her tongue. She swallows once. She shakes her head too, wondering at what point was she ever supposed to be here. There was Marton, which seems forever ago, and a bottle, two bottles of wine that sat on her kitchen counter waiting for him; it was Daniel that drank them with her, Daniel that made her laugh. This stopped being a terrible joke, she thinks, a long time ago.  
“Did you break into my flat?” she asks finally.

His eyes widen. He laughs then, loud and amused. His cheeks are flushed with whatever he’s been drinking, or maybe it’s the cold – she isn’t entirely sure because then, too, he’s looking at her like she’s completely lost it.

“I have a key,” he says. He reaches forward, pulling the cigarette from her mouth. He brings it to his. “You gave it to me, remember?”

And she does, she wants to say. She does. Sick dog or sick assistant – the story is so far out of her reach now, she’s angry and tired, and it’s just easy, too easy to let the emotions was right over her again.

“That’s not the point,” she mutters.

He raises an eyebrow. “You’re accusing me, love, of breaking in - isn’t it?”

He is calm too, maybe too calm, and she’s annoyed almost instantly about that. She wants to tell him how stupid this all is – the phone calls, the nonchalance, the museum, and the fact that he just can’t tell her. She doesn’t understand why he’s suddenly just this off-putting.

I don’t understand you. It’s just too easy to say. He leans closer though, and startles her, forcing her to look up at him again.

“Green?”

“What?” she spits out.

He chuckles. “The key?”

“You never gave it back.” It’s an accusation, maybe even a plea for it all to end. “Explains everything,” she mutters. She reaches forward and pulls the cigarette from his mouth. She doesn’t take it, but drops it and digs her heel into it, uncaring as her dress drapes over her foot.

“Do you want it back?” he asks.

It’s a simple question. It would be, if he wasn’t Daniel. There is something there, of course. There is always something there. And she hates herself for it, staring at him, then the cigarette that’s folded under her heel. She pulls back, her hands curling in her dress and twisting into the silk as she carefully walks to the door. She pauses for a moment and he’s watching her; amusement is something that he’s never been brilliant at hiding.

Her mouth opens. Then closes. “Go back to New York,” she manages.

 

He breaks into her flat again, maybe. A third time, maybe. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what to think anymore. Instead of seeing his face, he is in her home. He is everywhere.

It takes her awhile to clean up. She doesn’t look at her room; she shuts the door, murmurs carefully to Griffin to keep him inside, and starts moving through everything, trying not to cry, trying not to yell, trying not to call Daniel and tell him that she’s just done.

She calls her sister.

“What is it now?” the other woman says tiredly. They haven’t spoken since Christmas. It was something about their aunt and marriage or was it Marton – Eva tries to forget often. She sighs softly. “What did he do?”

Eva’s mouth is tight. “I hate him.”

“Of course you do.”

“I hate him,” she swears, and her eyes dart around the room. She’s pilled books against some of the paintings. There are nail marks on the wall. She cannot remember where her mother left the tools the last time she visited. “I hate him,” she breathes. “I hate how bloody charming he thinks he is, how he thinks he can just go this far –”

“What did he do?”

Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. She knows how completely ridiculous the whole thing sounds – to her sister, no less. But looking around again, she can feel her eyes start to burn and she lets out a shaky, panicked sigh. She should call him, she thinks. Yell. Tell him he’s won, whatever he wanted to start, whatever this is.

“My flat’s a mess,” she says. It comes out shaky. She listens to her sister still. There is laughter on the other line. She swears she hears her mother too, a baby and the husband; there is sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her fingers press into her temple.

“What else is new?” Her sister’s voice is sharp.

Eva can hear herself answer, countering with her French seamless and angry. This isn’t new. Things have been like this forever. But she’s thinking about Daniel, Daniel and whatever is going on in his head – maybe it’s Satsuki, she reasons. Maybe it’s stress. Maybe it’s because he knows exactly how she feels about him and it’s just this easy to get to her.

“Eva?”

She blinks. Her fingers close over a book next to her. It slips and she lets it drop into her lap.

“It doesn’t matter,” she manages. “I will deal.”

 

There are three messages. It’s late, and she gets through half of the first, sitting at the edge of her bed and watching Griffin as he nudges some clothes on the floor. Her eyes close.

“You can’t avoid me forever,” Daniel says. His voice is soft and hesitant. He seems worried, maybe apologetic. “I don’t know exactly what I did, Green, and if I did – if I did something potentially crass and or stupid, I apologize. I apologize for being an – ”

She stops the message. She closes her phone and then her fist around it, bring both of her hands to her lap. She is tired. She is a little bit lonely and lost. She feels awkward and she imagines that he is the only one, truly the only one that can get her to feel this way. She rocks herself lightly, swaying as if it’ll just do something that she can control and this is it, she thinks, this has to be it – the point, what he needs to tell her, prove to her.

This is about control.

Eva may hate him for it.

 

5.

She's at a Mont Blanc party.

She wouldn't have gone if she'd had a choice, but she doesn't so she puts on a pretty dress, paints her lips, and does her hair up big and wild. Her assistant, who arrives with the car, says she looks amazing, which goes further than expected to soothe her nerves. She can concentrate at least on the short briefing, smile for the pictures, shake hands with the right people when they arrive without feeling like she's about to shatter.

She heads to the bar as soon as it's seemly. She orders a dry martini, lemon twist, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she can even process the implications. It tastes bitter and harsh in her mouth, but somehow she relishes this backlash against her senses. The alcohol fumes flood her noses and she exhales in a soft huff. Calm down, she tells herself. He can't be here. You're fine. You're gonna be fine.

And she is, laughing gaily and mingling and managing to limit herself to just three drinks, which considering her current mental state, is a fair doing. She's pleasantly warm and buoyed by the vodka when she steps outside for a cigarette. No one follows her and she feels no urge to look over her shoulder, smoking this lone indulgence slowly, blowing the smoke out her mouth and nose. It tastes crisp and fragrant against her tongue.

This is where he first spots her. He had no trouble gaining entrance to the party. He'd had a forged invite, but they hadn't even asked for it. The young man working the door had just nodded at the bouncer, as subtly as one can in such a position, and even winked at Bond as he'd come through the door. For what, Bond wasn't sure. His reputation certainly did not precede him in such circles. He files the information away in the back of his mind. He's already moving forward into the party. People smile at him knowingly, but he ignores them. He's here only for a single prey.

He lurks, unobtrusively for a few moment before he spots her near the bar. He's arrived late. He can tell she's growing nervous. It pleases him rather than worries him. To him, it speaks to her guilt. When she goes outside, to the smoker's patio, he follows after a minute, lurking in the shadows, watching her enjoy a leisurely smoke. That she smokes, and seems to accustomed to it, surprises him. She never smelled of smoke when he knew her. She never smoked according to her dossier. She seems old to have started the habit and it puzzles him. Even for a cover, she seems to take an excessive pleasure in this sole cigarette. The tip flares in the darkness of the evening, casting an orange glow on the curves of her chin, her cheekbones, the tip of her nose. Bond admires her as he watches her flick ash to the ground and exhale in soft, breathy sighs.

He lets her almost finish it before stepping out of the shadows. "Hello," he says quietly and she starts.

"Daniel," she says, sucking on her cigarette for a moment, inhaling then exhaling before she cruelly smashes it out on the iron railing. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Indeed," he says, though he has no idea who Daniel is.

"Well then. Make your joke." She laughs, harsh and bitter. She doesn't step towards him like he expects, though, assertive and brash. Instead she shrinks back slightly, masking it with a casual lean against the railing.

"There is no joke," he says, growing a bit terse. He doesn't have time for her games.

"Of course not," she snaps, waving a Gaelic hand. "Of course not."

"Really," he drawls slowly, eyeing her up and down.

She shivers, rubbing her left hand against her right forearm subconsciously.

"You're cold," he says, voice softening.

"I'm not," she insists too quickly, holding out a hand to stave him off.

"Oh?" He steps towards her and she shrinks further away. "I'm not going to hurt you," he says.

"That's not..." she swallows hard, turning so her back half faces him as she edges towards the door. "That's not what I'm afraid of."

He grabs her then, roughly by the upper arm. "Isn't it?" he says, voice growing hard.

"No, Daniel. I'm worried about you." She turns her head, looking at him up over her shoulder, her eyes huge and searching. Her left hand flutters up, like she will touch him, then down. Her eyes drop. "I need to go."

It's on the tip of his tongue to say no, to demand she stay, but he thinks better of it. "I'll escort you out," he says.

She shakes her head and a lock of her long, dark hard whispers across his face he's so close to her now, looming over her in the darkness. "No," she says with her slightly accented English. "Leave me alone. Please." She pushes a hand back against his chest and he takes a step backwards.

"Wait," he says, but she doesn't listen, already moving forward through the doors inside, a one hand to her brow.

He follows her inside, pausing at the threshold to track her movement. She's speaking to someone and making gestures quickly with her hands before her face capitulates into a charming smile before she moves towards the exit. Bond straightens his tux jacket and works around the back of the room, avoiding as many eyes as he can. Too many people are looking at him and he hasn't done anything. If he were the sweating type, he'd be drenched, but instead he's just annoyed.

He tracks her down finally at the bank of elevators that lead downstairs. She's smashing her fingers frantically against the buttons and he slips inside at just the right moment to not trigger the door.

"Damn," she swears quietly, looking straight ahead at the doors.

"You can't avoid me forever," he tells her, turning towards her.

She sighs, staring up at him. "Can't I?" she asks wearily.

"No," he says with a laugh, a quirk of his mouth before he's sliding his hand along her jawbone into her head hair and lowering his mouth to hers.

She could have said no, stomped on his foot, but instead she just stares up at him accepting her fate. His mouth is soft and warm on hers, but curiously demanding. There is no politeness, no sense of reacquaintance. It feels wrong somehow, but still terribly arousing, like kissing a tall dark stranger or how she'd imagine it, anyway. He doesn't kiss anything like she remembers Daniel, acting or otherwise.

The elevator sounds the ground floor and she breaks the kiss. "Seriously," she says roughly, "leave me out of whatever game this is you're playing." She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand as she stares at him before stalking out of the elevator. He watches her go, the taste of her still on his lips.

He looks slightly perplexed and he exits the lift a few moments later, his brows drawn together in a frown.

 

This is not just about the party.

She is alone in the car that takes her back to her flat. Her dress smoothes out against her seat and she is trembling, staring blankly at the passing city. She does not want to go home.

It takes her a minute, and then two, and she leans forward, knocking on the glass for the driver. She murmurs a few requests, quiet, polite, and nothing but thoughtful. The man manages to smile at her and she drops back, grabbing her phone to call her assistant to let her know that tonight, just tonight, she does not want to be bothered.

But she still makes a mistake, and it’s Daniel that calls, Daniel’s name that is sprawled, shuddering across the screen of her phone that makes her frown and rub her temple before answering.

She doesn’t say anything. He sighs, and she can hear the frown. “Green?”

He tries again. “Green?”

There are a million different responses to everything, everything that’s occurred in the last couple of weeks. There is her confusion. There is the fact that he’s never even begun, save for the last call, to admitting to anything that he’s done and that make her furious.

“I do not want to talk to you,” she says quietly. She is unapologetic. “This is done,” she says. Her hand waves in front of her as if he were watching. “I cannot do this.”

He clears his throat. She hears a door open and shut. She hears him murmur to someone else. There are no sounds of the party, nor the waiting city outside, and it seems all too familiar, the way he doesn’t fit. She had left in hurry. She did not want to see him or stay.

“What happened?” he murmurs.

Her eyes close. “Hang up,” she says.

“What happened?” he insists. “What the fuck happened – you are never like this? I can usually pull it out of you. But bloody hell, Green … what did I do?”

She sighs. She listens to the car stop. The driver pushes the window down between the two of them and says something about being here, wherever here is, at the hotel, wherever that is. She is sure that Daniel hears it.  
“I have to go,” she murmurs. She reaches for her purse. She remembers Griffin, vague. She remembers to call her assistant to tell her too. “I am – I’m tired, Daniel. I have to go.”

“Fucking hell,” he breathes.

“Don’t. Don’t.”

Her eyes widen. The driver is at her door now, and when he opens it, she launches into her response angrily, her voice dropping into a strain.

“You’re a bastard,” she tells him. She stares outside, focusing on the lights that trail into the hotel. They face the door. “You’re a bastard of the worst kind and maybe it’s my fault, all my fault – really, at this point, it wouldn’t surprise me, but what you’re doing, whatever point you’re trying to prove. I am done, Daniel. I’m done and you’ve won. That is what you want me to say, non? You’ve won.”

She is not ready for Daniel to answer back. There is no explosion. There is no pressing need to prove to her that she is wrong. The sound of his voice cuts from the other line, hard and hurt, surprised even.

“Where is this coming from?” he breathes.

The driver is hovering over her door too, waiting patiently. She tries to signal him to give her a minute, just a minute, but her hand cannot move from her lap. Her fingers curl in her dress.

Daniel growls. “I think you’ve finally fucking lost it,” he snarls. “Where the hell do you get off? I don’t even know where to fucking start. You’ve just – I’ve apologized. I’m come around to see you. I’ve tried to talk to you –”

“About what?” she snaps.

She can almost see him. His eyes narrowed, his mouth set, framed, and thinning into a tight line. He’s cold. “Let me finish.”

Her heart is in her throat. She feels like crying and laughing, and both are making her head spin. She feels herself sink back into the seat. The driver gently closes the door.

“You’re not like this,” Daniel murmurs. He is dangerously calm. “Either it’s me or you or something, but this isn’t you. This isn’t like you. You’re my friend, you know. You’re important to me. So please, for fuck’s sake, let me know what’s going on so that I can fix it.”

Her mouth cracks a smile. There’s a sound that leaves, but she can’t quite wrap her head around it; it’s shaky and too transparent. Then she hears it.

“Daniel?”

A woman’s voice. It’s familiar, but she cannot put two and two together. It’s just not something she wants to do right now. But still, it’s a woman’s voice and there’s another murmur, too soft for her to hear anything that’s said. She listens to Daniel’s hand slide over the phone.

“Eva –”

“You’re busy,” she says. Her teeth sink into her lip. Her eyes are dark and unfocused. “You’re busy and I should go.”

“Stop it,” he says.

“Oh.” She laughs and she can taste the vodkas she had the party. The vodkas, she thinks, the party, the party where he cornered her in the lift and kissed her. He kissed her. It feels impossible, even thinking about it, but it’s made everything else feel too entirely real.

She laughs again.

“This is –” her head spins. “I’m so sorry,” she manages. “I can’t – how silly, no? You can’t fix this, Daniel. What’s done is done. This is done.”

A part of her can see him again, imagines him in whatever godforsaken room he’s taken too. She is supposed to remember where he is, whether or not it’s New York or Toronto and if he just decided to tell her. She doesn’t think she can remember a time where they’ve kept secrets from each other, if there’s ever really been a need, and she feels like all of this has just betrayed the little part of him that she’s always felt she’s had.

“ – don’t say that,” he murmurs. His voice catches. She blinks and she may have missed something. “Just – don’t say that.”

She doesn’t answer. She can’t answer. She is tired and sad and so far from making any sense of her own confusion. He says something else, but she pulls her phone away from her ear and drops into her lap. It shuffles forward and her palm catches it, her fingers brushing over the keys before she just presses end. She sits there for a while longer, staring blankly, until the driver knocks on her window again.

This is true.

 

He steps out into the cool night air and summons the valet with a nod, passing over his fob.

"Oh, the Aston. Very James Bond," the kid says before quelling under the icy, affronted glare he receives for this comment. He stammers an apology and hurries off.

"Damnation," Bond swears under his breath. What the devil is going on? He's almost tempted to call M. He's never been spotted like that, by some raw youth working the valet parking booth, for God's sake. In another instance, he'd wonder if someone had deliberately blown his cover, but this isn't a job. Not really. This is personal. Which makes it worse, really.

"Have a good night, Mr. Craig," the kid stammers into the pavement as Bond gets into the car. This is the second time tonight he's been called by that name. Something is going on. This is all so wrong, so terribly wrong. But first – the girl. Always the girl.

As he pulls away from the curb with a sequel of tires, his fingers clench and unclench on the steering wheel. Maybe he's been right this whole time, that it really is her. Though he's beginning to have his doubts. But what if? What if and what if someone else has found her too. And now he's being played. He clenches his teeth, flexing his jaw muscles. If there is one thing Bond cannot abide, it's being played in a game he didn't even know he was playing.

"Fuck," he swears softly to himself. "Bloody fucking shit."

Her car has disappeared into the anonymous flow of London traffic, but he's not concerned. He knows where she lives. More to the point, he dropped a tiny GPS tracker into her purse in the elevator. He hadn't planned to follow it so soon, but a jab at the dash of the Aston and there it is, on the console, transmitting away. Bond frowns; she doesn't seem to be going back to that bohemian flat in Primrose Hill. She's heading elsewhere. He yanks the wheel, merging without indicating, roughly cutting off a couple in a Citron who blare their horn in protest.  
Bond doesn't hear it; his mind is already racing. Where is she going? Who is she meeting? His left hand instinctively touches the butt of his gun, in it's underarm holster. His gaze narrows, flicking from the screen to the road, as he pushes the Aston faster, weaving in and out of traffic. He wants to catch her in the act. He will catch her in the act. And then he will finish this game they started so many years ago, this time on his terms.

 

The hotel room is too big for one person. She sits on the edge of the bed, still dressed and clutching her phone. Her assistant will be here in the morning with clothes and Griffin. She called room service too, but she isn’t hungry and her mind is still rolling back to the conversation she had only moments ago.

The knock startles her.

She drops her phone into the bed. Her hands press against her dress, smoothing over her hips as she manages to catch her breath. Her face relaxes into an almost impassive expression.

He’s there, when she opens the door.

“Hello,” he says quietly, and it’s like the party again, his mouth turning slightly. He eyes her carefully. Her fingers tighten around the door but he makes no move to come inside. “You weren’t – ”

“Home?” she interrupts. “No.”

There is an impressive change with how he looks at her; in her head, she can hear their conversation on the phone, the way his voice cracked and swayed and was both charming and imperfect. The man in front of her is completely unreadable.

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

He nods. He steps forward and then around her, brushing by her carefully. She manages to shake her head and when she turns, he stays standing by the bed. His eyes narrow briefly.

“Why don’t you want to talk to me?” he asks. She almost laughs, but he is perfectly serious.

“You know why,” she manages.

He shakes his head.

“I –” she laughs now, her eyes burning. Her hands press against her face and she leans back against the door. “This is crazy,” she breathes. “You’re making me feel like I’ve lost my bloody mind.”

“Have you?” he asks.

She shoots him a dark look. He chuckles. It feels like the first time she’s heard him laugh at anything. The corners of his mouth quirk and she presses back harder against the door, crossing her arms against her chest.

“You’re not funny,” she says. “You’re an ass.”

“I’ve been told.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she breathes, and it’s coming back, the conversation that they had in the car. He doesn’t smell like alcohol. He looks perfectly placed in the room, in her room, and she cannot see him anymore. It’s what, she thinks, scares her the most.

Maybe she is losing her mind.

“You’re not afraid of me.”

She blinks. His hands slide out of his pockets. He’s wearing a set of gloves, black and leather. His hands, she’s always loved his hands. It’s perfectly sound confession, something he knows and loves to tease her about; for whatever reason, the gloves, the gloves bother her.

Eva shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I’m not. And I told you – I’m done. I’m done with all of this, with you – I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what you want, what you need, what this is – oh, I’ve finally lost it. You’ve done it all over again.”

His mouth opens and closes. He chuckles again. A chill crawls up her spine and then she feels it again, that sensation, the utter confusion of having something unravel right in front of her, right and perfectly wrong. Her mouth dries and he moves to the front of the bed.

He’s careful, she notices. His gloved hands start plucking the buttons of his coat; it opens and she catches the suit again, the perfectly pressed, dapper suit that is impossibly Daniel but only when necessary. When he sits, the tails flutter out and spread over the bed. She doesn’t catch a wrinkle or the reason why she cannot keep her eyes away.

“What are you doing?” she asks quietly. He ignores her. It doesn’t seem to matter. His hand slides inside his jacket. She hears the click and her mouth dries. She cannot take her gaze away from his face.

Eva watches as he slowly pulls a gun out.

He is stone cold again.


	2. Ghosts in the Daylight

It’s his eyes, she decides, that makes her the most uneasy. They have always been this particular shade of blue, too bright, too wide, too there. He doesn’t blink, holding the handle of the gun.

“What are you doing?” she asks again, and her arms draw away from her chest, her hand falling limp against her sides. She straightens unconsciously. Her mouth sets itself into a tight line. She cannot read him or look away.

He puts the gun down next to him. He leans back in the bed, resting lazily against a hand. She feels herself waiting for a smile; but the feeling is dwindling, disappearing into a real stretch of fear that she does not understand at all.

“Daniel,” she says quietly.

He scoffs. “You said you weren’t afraid of me.” He pushes himself up to sit again. When he picks up the gun, something snaps into place. It echoes in the room. Eva feels impossibly small. “Are you sure?” he asks lightly. “That you’re not afraid of me?” he says.

She does not like the way he is looking at her. She tries and musters up a response, but her mouth isn’t moving. She lifts a shaky hand to cover her eyes, her fingers pressing against the bridges of her temple. Her head is starting to hurt. There is her heart too; pounding in her ears, in her throat, and her mind starts to wander back to their conversation earlier.

“I don’t understand this.”

She curses in French. Her teeth press into her lip.

“You are – ” her hand waves between them. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do – scare me, okay. Make me angry, okay. I told you. I told you I can’t. I can’t do this emotional back and forth. I can’t. I keep repeating myself too – you are the only who –” her eyes begin to burn and all she can think is not now, not now or here because she cannot hide behind crying on cue. “My head is a mess,” she tries again. “I don’t exactly understand, you know, why you won’t admit to following me. I don’t understand why you went into my flat – my flat, Daniel. You know that –”

She falters because he stands. He stands and she isn’t expecting it, expecting how he suddenly looms from just a few feet.

His mouth sets into a frown. “You never rambled,” he says.

She lets out a dry laugh.

“I ramble.”

“Never,” he insists.

“You’re scaring me,” she breathes.

She is wide-eyed too when he steps forward, his mouth set grimly now, and all she can think is oh god, oh god, oh god. There is something in her that snaps out of her anger, that moves past it all, and just forgets about Daniel. She does not know this man at all.

He stops in front of her, pressing closely – he isn’t touching her and this isn’t like the lift. He raises the gun and her eyes follow, her head jerking away as she turns and looks to the side.

“You should go.”

He makes a sound like a laugh. He still isn’t touching her.

“You should go,” she swallows. “You should go now and I don’t ever want to see you again. You win –”

There’s a loud click, snap, and the barrel of the gun is pointed against her head. Her eyes widen again. She can hear him breath heavily. His hand slams against the door, just by her eyes and she forces herself to keep staring at the gun. Her heart stops.

“Tell me again,” he says. “Tell me again to go, tell me again that you don’t want to see me – tell me again that you’re not you. Because I’ve been everywhere, I’ve been so reasonably patient,” he gasps angrily, and her eyes blur, the tears starting to fall – he’s never seen her cry, she thinks, not like this, not for real. “I want to know, I need to know what’s going on so that I can kill you and get on with it –”

He stops. The gun presses harder into her temple and she feels his hand start to slide around her throat, his fingers pressing into her skin.

“Why, why –” his fingers tighten and she’s forced to look at him. His eyes are wider than she remembers them to be. “Why are you still alive?”

She cannot answer. Her lips feel dry. His hand is completely still. The gun is completely still. It’s what he does, what the last thing he may do is what she waits for. She is waiting for him because it is the only thing she can do.

They’re quiet. He’s breathing heavily. It’s the only sound in the room, making it bigger; outside the door, there is a conversation that passes, and for that brief, terrible moment, she wonders what might happen if she just started to kick and flail against the door.

She doesn’t move.

“You’re not Daniel.”

It happens then, Eva’s mouth opening slowly and the words, they slip. His eyes darken and that cruel, unusual twist of his mouth. There is memory, sudden and short, on set somewhere back. “You’re not Daniel,” she says again, louder. Her voice breaks. “I don’t know who you are.”

What she says is insanity, complete insanity, and when his fingers press into her throat again, she feels his nails drag against her skin. They relax, spreading over her skin, his thumb sliding over her jaw. He is staring at her, maybe even waiting, his gaze heavy, searching for something that he needs, that he needs from her; it hasn’t changed and for whatever reason, she wonders if it ever does. The gun stays pressed against her head.

He suddenly jerks back.

“Fuck,” he breathes. “Fuck, fuck,” he snarls. He pulls himself away from her, and she tries to move past him, her legs giving out as she sinks to the floor. Her dress swallows her and her back rests against the wall, flat as she draws her legs against her chest.

He is cursing, half-snapping at her, half-not, and she can only keep her gaze at the floor. Her heart is still racing and she can still feel his fingers at her throat. She starts to rock herself slowly, wishing that she had gone home, straight home, that she had told her assistant to stay. She can smell him, taste him, and he’s everywhere again, in her home, in her head, all over her skin and everything is spinning.

Eva swears, her fingers pressing into her temples again. They slide into her hair and she pulls lightly. There is a scuffle and she squeezes her eyes shut. The door slams and she is holding her breath.

He is gone.

 

 

 

6.

 

It isn't her. It isn't her.

It.

Isn't.

Her.

He's walking down the plushly carpeted hotel hallway, his mind reeling. It isn't her. It never was her. Fuck.

"Fuck," he swears again, harshly. He takes the fire stairs as fast as he can, cold cement slapping his feet as he descends. It isn't her.

Something has gone wrong, gone terribly wrong. He plays it all back. He sees her face. He sees her lack of fear and then her absolute terror, her lack of recognition. It isn't her. She's someone else. She's someone else with Vesper's face. Vesper's voice. Vesper's...everything. Except not even the slightest.

And that name she kept calling him. Daniel. Daniel. As common as James, but not even remotely similar. His mind is playing in reverse, double time. Daniel. Mister Craig. Knowing wink. A smile from some bitch who makes her living on Channel 4 mini-series. Fuck. There's someone else. There is another.

He's in the underground car park now. He's getting in his car, movements automatic. The Aston roars to life and he guns it, tires squealing on the coated cement.

There is another.

He drives straight home. He opens a bottle of vodka. He sits--nay, lounges--on his expensive leather L-shaped sofa. He thinks. He plots. He decides. He will find the truth. She cannot keep it from him any longer.

On the way out the door, he turns off the lights.

 

 

There's no such thing as breaking into the Ministry of Defense, but this is about as close as you could get.

He steals inside the building late at night. The hallways are still brightly lit, but the offices, behind their plate glass walls, are shadowy and silent. He thought for a moment to do it from her house again, but it was risky the first time and she'll have put counter measures in place. Or, worse, she might be at home. He'd rather deal with the consequences later, rather than sooner. Besides, ironic as it is to say, she might make him lose his nerve.

So he goes into work late at night, coolly and confidently flashing the security guard a smile as he clears the front foyer and enters into the depths of MI6. He's only slightly drunk, not that he'd ever admit it, but the half-empty bottle of Grey Goose and six mauled lemons in his tastefully and bleakly decorated flat would say otherwise.

He doesn't try to avoid the security cameras or even act like he's here to do anything other than the task he's set himself. He knows she has her spies watching, always watching, and that someone is probably hovering with their finger over speed-dial in some back room full of monitors. The thought makes him laugh softly, the corner of his mouth quirking up sharply as he shakes his head.

Records are kept downstairs.

Paper copies are as risky as electronic these days, though maybe less so, as ironic as it would seem, the sole duplicates either destroyed on the spot or kept with their parent, down in the depths of the basement. He knows where the department is, so vaguely called "Information Acquisitions and Research" which really, in his mind, means trumped up librarians. He doesn't know or care what they really do, just that they have the information he needs.

The plate glass door is unlocked when he reaches it, but the department is dimmed, with only the emergency lights casting a pale glow over the rows of cubicles and, further back, beyond another plate glass wall, endless rows of shelving crammed with binders and neatly labeled cardboard boxes. Bond sighs and pauses for a moment to adjust his cuffs as his eyes adjust to the gloom. He is resigned to a long search, fortified on the vodka. It stands to reason, he thinks, that there will be an index and it will be straightforward from there.

There is a reception desk that stands near the front of the center aisle leading back towards the library of documents. It's one of those C or maybe S shaped modern affairs. It's polished top is uncluttered except for a box of tissues, a mesh metal in/out box, a small house plant, and a neat stack of manila envelopes perched far away from these other, centrally located objects, situated near enough to the end and edge of the desk that someone walking too close would almost always knock them to the floor. Bond frowns, but cannot ignore the anomaly. He approaches the files; he has to walk by them anyway on his way into the stacks. There is a pale yellow sticky-note stuck to the topmost file. Written on it, in heavy block marker-penned letters, is "007".

Bond swears angrily and grabs the stack of files roughly, flipping through them, a frown on his face, like a child denied a sweet. It's all here, everything he came to look for. On the bottom file is another sticky-note: DO NOT REMOVE FROM OFFICE -M.

"Meddling know-it-all," he mutters to the empty room as he shoves the files under his arm and stalks from the room.

He takes the file home of course. No one comes to intercept him in the halls and even Gary, that token gesture at security in the foyer, doesn't look up from whatever he's watching on his mobile phone. He takes the lift down to the underground carpark and dumps the files, without regard to their contents, in the passenger seat of his Aston Martin.

He almost clips a bin on his way down the alley that leads into the employees’ carpark, and revs the engine in agitation before pulling out into the traffic. It's late, so there isn't much of it, but he still drives like he's being followed, swerving in and out of black cabs and lorries like it's his job.

Well, technically it is.

He takes the files up to his flat, pushing the pile of round wooden balls in their stamped tin plate his decorator put on his coffee table to the floor, where it crashes with a hollow sound against the stonework. He tosses the files down before retreating to the island bar that separates his kitchen from the living area to where he left the bottle of Grey Goose. He pours a healthy measure into the cocktail shaker, dumping in ice, peeling a thin curl of lemon, measuring the not-vermouth. In a few moments time, he's made himself a doubles quantity of drink, but despite these pains, dumps it unceremoniously into a large tumbler, taking it back to the coffee table where he spends a minute sipping in silence, staring down at the blank, emotionless beige that he hopes contains some kernel of information that will tell him – well he's not sure what.

Something to relieve this burning in his gut that isn't from the vodka.

It's not that he hasn't seen her file before. He saw it after that whole affair was over, after Russia, after he let it go and pushed her to the back of his mind. He'd be afraid to look at it before then, that his emotions would have further overwhelmed him, but by then there was a cool and heady sense of disassociation that allowed him to analyze her life like a stranger. Like she was a stranger.

He sits down on his cold designer leather couch, placing his drink, without a coaster, onto the table. He pauses, leaned forward, elbows on his knees as the fingers of his right hand touch first one folder, then another. He's not sure which one he wants to read first--the one whose contents he already knows or the one whose contents he already found with a quick Google search. He feels like this kind of anticipation will only lead to an anticlimax. He shakes off the feeling and shuffles the folders alongside each other, flipping their covers back, first one then the other. Her face stares up at him, doubled.

And yet there is something supremely different between the two. One stares insolently into the lens of the camera, with the hint of a quirk in the corner of her mouth, a standard government employee identification shot on a bleak off-white background, while the other looks softly wary, like she isn't quite comfortable posing for this quick, candid portrait that whoever made the file picked to use, her smile slightly stilted, strained, awkward.

He reads the first pages, picks up his drink, takes a healthy swallow. It tastes bitter in his mouth. There is nothing new on these pages that he hasn't read before. There is no great enlightenment. There is no great conspiracy. M was right. It wasn't important. Until now. He sighs and leans back against the couch cushions, closing his eyes.

He wonders if M will give him that one, final dossier.

 

 

This is literally one of the stupidest things he has ever done, which he thinks even as he wrestles with the flat-screen TV he never uses, drunk on another half a bottle of Grey Goose.

The stupidest thing. If only he'd known he could have done this years ago, indeed before it had ever started, and gotten over her. Maybe. He doesn't know yet what these discs will contain. He's too lazy or impatient, depending on who you ask, to read the boxes. Mostly the latter. Moneypenny had sent one of the interns out to the local HMV, and when that wasn't enough, further into the city to collect the flimsy plastic boxes with their rippling clear sleeves over mediocre Photoshopped titles. She was smart enough to remove the plastic wrap herself and Bond merely has to pry the discs from their cold shells and cram them into the player on the side of his tellie.

The first film he puts in he can barely watch.

It's awful and implausible and historically inaccurate and reminds him why he never goes to the cinema besides not having the time. The lead actor is thin and reedy and terrible, with a weak chin and a propensity towards over enunciation.

"Ponsy git," he tells his television, mashing the buttons on the remote to stop the disc before she ever appears.

He goes to his kitchen then to make another drink, to fortify himself against what's to come. In this moment, as he zests the lemon, he recalls just exactly why they employ low-paid people in Research to watch these sorts of terrible things instead of forcing agents too except when necessary. Unfortunately, he feels this is necessary.

The next disc he puts in seems to be a film that had potential before it met its editor. She plays a schitzo. Her hair is red instead of black-brown and this makes his purse his lips in speculation. He doesn't care for the film, but she ensnares him nonetheless. There is something about her that speaks to him. She's fragile. She's brash. Her character's desperation reminds him of hers.

The movie ends and he feels unfulfilled still, so he picks another disc and puts it in. It seems to be a period piece, as much as the 1960s can be period. It's French. He wishes he'd picked something else, but then, there she is, so very much younger than she is now, chained to the gates, a cigarette dangling the most negligent way possibly from her sultry, insolent lips. He does not like her. They go back to her apartment with her brother. It goes downhill from there.

It isn't the nudity that bothers him, though he studies her body, trying to remember if he remembers any inch of it. He just hates the movie though. He is no old man wishing to be young. He's a man who loves life and who eliminates it. He finds himself curling his lip, sucking down his martini at these foolish children and their stupid games.

Even she cannot improve it.

 

 

 

7.

 

The phone ringing wakes him up.

Not his mobile, which has fallen somewhere inside the sofa he is sprawled across--it's the landline. It's important. His brain screams at him to wake up. He's laying on his couch, hungover as fuck, the sun streaming in the huge windows. The DVD menu has irritating music, that keeps repeating over and over again, as it has presumably done for the past four hours.

He staggers to the kitchen, picks up the handset. "Bond here," he barely manages.

"Bond? Putting M through to you."

"Shit," he swears. "Shit shit shi--"

"Double Oh Seven?"

"-it."

"I do hope that is regarding your behavior and not my presence. I need you in my office. One hour."

The line disconnects with a click.

 

 

Her assistant meets her in the lobby with a coffee and Griffin in a waiting car. Her brows are knitted into concern. “You didn’t sleep,” the other woman guesses, and Eva shrugs, hidden behind her sunglasses. She does not feel like talking right now.

The car has a different driver though. Outside, Eva takes a nervous cigarette. Her eyes dart everywhere; there is healthy stream of cars, cabs, and people walking in and around the hotel, and when she squints she catches a small group of tourists pausing for photos somewhere off to the side.

“You have several missed calls,” her assistant says. “Your mum. Your publicist – and er, Mr. Craig?”

Eva tenses. “Daniel?” Her voice is hard. It cracks slightly, but her assistant doesn’t catch it. When she nods, Eva moves to the car. She opens the door quietly and watches as Griffin scampers over the seats to greet her. He licks the tips of her fingers and then turns, bored. “Why?” Eva manages. “Did he say why he was calling?”

“Couldn’t reach you,” her assistant says. She does not say he was worried about you, he wanted to apologize, there are flowers at your flat because that isn’t what Daniel does; his apologies are in person. This isn’t his fault.

Eva slides her fingers under her sunglasses. She pinches the bridge of her nose and shakes her head.

Her assistant touches her arm. “He’ll call back,” she says gently.

“I know.”

She tries not to laugh. Already her head is starting to replay the night before; she couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t sleep, and just sat there, hours after he left, staring at the carpet. She’s sure her hands are going to start shaking again, should she think anymore of it, but she’s never really understood what to do with any of this.

When she slides into the car, she gathers Griffin into her lap, pulls him against her chest even as he fidgets restlessly. She barely hears her assistant talk to the drive and leans back into her seat to close her eyes.

“Did he say anything?” she asks again. Her voice catches. You’re not her. I can fix it. Eva does not want to go home. It sounds so irresponsibly silly; home isn’t hers anymore, and the notion that it’s been taken away from her hurts. It makes her angry and she doesn’t know where to begin with the why.

“He seemed worried,” her assistant offers. The other woman is unfazed by the question again. “I don’t know – he usually calls you directly, right? I didn’t want to tell him that you didn’t want to go home.”

“It’s all right,” she says. Griffin nuzzles her neck and she laughs, closing her eyes. Her lips press into his fur. “I’m sure.”

Her assistant nods. Eva keeps her eyes closed. She listens to the radio, faint from the front, and tries to will Griffin to relax in her arms. He does, eventually, and pulls away from her neck, shifting into her lap to settle. She lets her fingers run through his fur and drops her head against the glass.

What does she say now? It sounds stupid, crazy, and completely insane to call Daniel back, apologize and try to dance around the fact that someone like him, but like him, has his face and she couldn’t tell the difference. There are nuisances, but she does not have the energy for them.

“You have a few days,” her assistant says then, and Eva forces herself to pay some attention, listening to the woman recount the schedule for the next couple of weeks. It will be New York, then back to Paris, and then for a few days, should she want it, she could go and see her sister. It’s her life.

But she remains quiet, her eyes opening as the car slows in front of her flat, just by the gated entrance of her neighbors. She smiles gratefully at her assistant brushing her hair out of her eyes.

“Take the day,” she says simply. Her fingers curl around Griffin’s leash. “We’ll be busy, after all.”

It is as simple as that suddenly. When the car stops, they say goodbye – although, Eva is certain that her assistant will manage to come back to check on her later. She walks quietly to the door, letting Griffin jump from her arms and scatter impatiently to the ground. She remembers her keys somewhere, at the bottom of her bag, the bag that her assistant gave her to carry her things from the previous night.

Her shoulder brushes against the door. Startled, the door swings open slowly.

Eva freezes.

 

 

The confrontation in her office leads to an anonymous black car bound for Primrose Hill.

"You can follow in that...thing," M tells him curtly, stepping inside with her assistant and shutting the door smartly in his face.

It's like she thinks this will give him time to think. Instead it just gives him time to seethe, in pulse with his pounding headache. He follows the black car at a respective distance through the streets westward; it won't do to have her alight chastising him for tailgating.

They pull up outside Eva's house. It's anything but subtle. M gets out of her car, straightens her severe suit. Villiers follows her, casting a frowning glance across the roof of the car at Bond's Aston. He doesn't give a shit. He double-parks her neighbour, alights from his car.

None of them have a key, but neither do they hesitate as they alight through the garden. No dog barks and M nods, solemnly. Villiers jimmies the lock. Bond smirks. His hangover is really kicking in now, but he ignores it as they file into the flat. At the curb, M's car pulls away. He'd smile if he didn't feel so awful. It's poetic, really.

M moves straight into the lounge, her eyes skimming briefly over the furnishings and then dismissing them. Bond watches her from the doorway. His head is pounding.

"I'll be a moment," he says, not waiting for M's reply or Villiers's censorious stare. He can barely abide the man, the posh public school lordling.

He goes down the hall to her kitchen and begins opening her cabinets in a systematic search. It doesn't take him long to find what he wants. He shuffles the bottles. They clink against each other and he's sure M can hear, but he persists. He is disappointed; there are no high-end whiskeys littering her cabinets. He pours himself a generous tumbler of Irish whiskey and removes himself back to the lounge.

"Well," M says, and it is not a question. She has arranged herself, like a cold peacock--no, hawk--near the French doors to the garden. Villiers hovers at her elbow. Bond wonders why he's here. Clearly M feels the same. "You can go. Wait with the car." The man frowns but nods curtly, does as he's told. He's a good little butt boy.

"Does he still pee on the carpets?" Bond asks with a smirk, taking a healthy swallow.

Her piercing gaze swings to him and pins him on the spot. "Really, Double Oh Seven. I'd think you knew your time and place. This isn't it. As much as I love breaking into the flats of mediocre movie stars, there is such a thing as national security, the job I--and you--have been hired and trained for. So I would keep my mouth shut, if I were smart."

Bond raises his brows and then the glass to his mouth.

 

 

Griffin stumbles into the hallway.

Eva follows absently. Her bag drops by the door and her hands fumble with the belt around her waist. She does not think much of the open door, or the strange sense of silence, digging out her phone from her coat pocket and turning to her messages to see if she can catch her mother first. She does not think of Daniel or the novelty of resurrecting friendships, sighing loudly as she enters her kitchen.

The cabinets are open.

There is a bottle of whiskey on the counter. She frowns, her brows furrowed. Then it’s Griffin, a low, husky growl calling from the sitting room; for a moment, she thinks Marton. The only person that her dog has ever really taken to immediately is Daniel.

She remembers giving Marton’s key to Daniel too.

Tensing, she walks into the next room as Griffin erupts into loud barking. Her mouth opens, and then closes, at the three visitors in her room start to stare at her entrance.

“Bonjour,” she says, and her voice is unexpectedly dry, her gaze moving instantly to the man with Daniel’s face, standing by her couch. His hand is wrapped tightly around a glass. The whiskey, she thinks. He holds her gaze too and she cannot bring herself to do anything but shrug, even lamely, shifting so that she moves to settle by a window.

The sitting room is the brightest space in the entire house. She hasn’t really fixed it, even after her flat was completely tossed apart. The paintings are still resting against her walls and the books manage to stay stacked neatly on the floor. It isn’t until Griffin comes scampering to her legs, that she notices the woman sitting on her couch; she remains quiet, lips pursed tightly, staring at her, then staring at the man – Eva barely notices the company behind the two of them, the back of another man watching her garden outside.

“It seems,” the woman speaks up finally. She’s calm, and Eva turns her gaze to her, watching as she stands. She straightens elegantly. “It seems,” she repeats, and primly, “that we owe you an apology, Ms. Green.”

“An apology?” she repeats, and the man scoffs into his glass. He earns a scathing look from the woman and Eva finds herself easing back against the window ledge. She is too tired to give into the rest of her questions.

“Yes,” the woman snaps. Her impatience manifests into a scowl. Next to her, the man snorts into his glass. “I want to stress how imperative it is that we maintain some kind of discretion – I am sure you understand, Ms. Green.”

She gets the feeling that the other woman is mocking her. Her gaze remains leveled though and she looks between her and the man. She feels ridiculously out of place all of the sudden, and reaches into her pockets, pulling out her cigarettes.

“I understand,” she says quietly. She pulls a cigarette between her fingers, then slides it into her mouth. Her lips curl briefly. “Although,” she manages, “I am confused to as why this kind of conversation is taking place in my flat. I suppose if one were to have discussion about discretion – ”

“I like her,” the man interrupts. His amusement is abrupt, and Eva shoots him a dark look.

The woman snorts. “When I want your opinion, Double-Oh-Seven,” she snarls, “I’ll be sure to ask.” She looks to Eva again. “It is, in fact, an usual set of circumstances that has brought us here as well as a complete lack of common sense – ” the man rolls his eyes but he earns a glare, “so it is my hope that we sort these matters out before I have to resort to other methods.”

The woman does not introduce herself, nor show any inclination of doing so. For whatever reason, Eva isn’t surprised. She finds herself glancing at the man again, the not-Daniel she thinks awkwardly; there is a slight exchange of words, murmurs that cause the other man to pull away from watching her garden and move to the woman. He is holding a coat.

“Ma’am,” he says.

Eva watches the woman nod. She takes the coat and Griffin seems to burrow back against her legs. She does not move to pick him up, not yet.

“Bond,” the woman says curtly. “Be sure to fix this mess.”

She turns and takes her coat, passing the man – Bond. His lip curls and he raises his glass to her back, turning away from them. He moves to face her garden. She can see him watching her through the window; her throat is tight, and her fingers rise to press at her temples. She rubs lightly.

“You have lovely home, Ms. Green,” she says politely.

Eva tries not to watch her go.

 

 

M leaves the room. They both watch her go silently before Eva turns her gaze back to him. He’s still watching the doorway out into the hall with a slight frown. He sets his empty glass down slowly with a final click.

“She means well,” Bond says.

“I—“ Her dog struggles in her arms and she rises, letting him hop off her lap first. “He needs to go out.”

They do an awkward dance in front of the French window. She eyes him warily. He seems too amused for the seriousness of this situation. Eva opens one of the doors and follows her dog outside where Griffin yaps cheerfully at the birdbath, the rosebush, the back fence. She follows him out, standing on her bricked terrace, arms wrapped around herself as she contemplates her garden, what’s just been said, what has happened to her carefully ordered life.

“Eva,” the man says, low, in Daniel’s voice. He’s too close behind her.

“Yes?” she says curtly, hunching her shoulders up.

“You want answers,” he says and it’s not a question.

She laughs, harsh and bitter and low. “Of course. Who wouldn’t?”

“I can give them to you.”

“Can you?”

“Of course,” he says and she can hear the smirk in his voice. She turns and falls a step back. He’s so close. Too close.

“I—“ she begins and then there is a soft thwack and an explosion of small wood fragments from the trim around her French doors.

“Get down,” he says, swearing and shoving her to the ground as she screams her dog’s name. Griffin’s head jerks from the back fence to her, then back before he bolts towards her. A tulip explodes as he gallops across the lawn into her arms.

“Damn,” Bond swears. “Get inside.” He has his gun out already, stalking down her lawn. She prays none of her neighbours see him.

For a moment, he’s angry their interlude has been interrupted, but as he eases himself down towards her back fence, he smiles. He’s going to kill two birds with one stone.

It’s an easy kill, as they go. He drags the body out of the way, calls the office for clean up, before he climbs back over into Eva’s yard. She’s huddled next to the curtain with her little dog.

“Come with me,” he says brusquely, without any preamble about his actions of the past ten minutes, grabbing her by her upper arm. She follows him numbly, still clutching her dog, who whines softly.

He hesitates for a moment, in her hallway, bathed in soft pale morning light from the star shaped glass inserts in her doorway leading to the foyer. This is stupid. This is rash. Yet he stole he passport yesterday. He had it all prepared, this end of his mission just made it happen. He'd smile if he was the type.

"Hurry," he says, ushering across the small front garden, the pavement, out into the street and around into his Aston Martin.

"This car..." she says softly but he's already closing the door on her and the dog she has clutched tightly into her lap.

"Fasten your seatbelt," he says briskly as he swings into the driver's seat, guns the car down her road too fast.

"I think I saw this car on Top Gear once," she murmurs faintly. He flicks his gaze over to her for a moment and then back to traffic, weaving in and out between cars.

Heavy London traffic gives way to the suburbs and then the highway. They're heading towards the ferries--not that he tells her, It's late afternoon when they arrive, in spite of his driving. English roads can only take you so far in a day. He rolls the car into the hold of the ship, flashes their passports. He even has one for the dog, thanks to the ever resourceful agents at the office, not that he'd taken a second look at the extra piece of laminated paper in the pile before now. Still, it's easier than paying customs agents off; they've become so tedious in this day and age. Almost makes him miss the Cold War, never mind that he'd barely been a double oh for six months before the wall had fallen.

"We should go up," he tells his silent passenger as he steps outside the car, leansdown to look at her with a frown.

She shakes her head, clutching the dog, who whins softly, as he had the past few hours, especially on tight turns in the road.

"He might like the fresh air," Bond says abruptly, slamming his door and walking way from the car, his hands thrust deeply in the pockets of his heavy woolen overcoat. Stubborn bitch.

She says nothing so explicit as "wait" as he hopes to hear, but there is a quiet release of expensive hydraulics and the door opens in a smooth sweep of air, closing with a smack that would make a lesser man wince.

"Come, Griffin," she says curly to the dog, who prances along side her, leaping at the looped end of his leash. She flicks a quick glance and him and just as quickly looks away at her little dog. "Good boy," she coos, leading him quickly past Bond and up onto the deck.

The corner of his mouth quirks and he shakes his head, following her.

8.

 

The Aston will never be the same again.

The dog is a problem he hadn’t foreseen. But she’d insisted and he’d wanted her to get into the car and out of that house, so he’d allowed it. It’d be one thing if he’d liked dogs or, at the very least, the dog liked him, but Griffin refuses to acknowledge him except to growl any time he gets too close.

That goddamn dog. He wants to say, but can’t. He’s never had to deal with a dog before. What girl would pick a dog over a weekend with him? Leave it with a mate. But these two—they won’t be separated. Then again, this is no picnic in Cambridge, but Bond has picked up women in worse situations. She won’t unbend though; she’s said barely ten words to him the entire trip, wrapped up in herself. Vesper would never—he catches himself thinking before his jaw firms and he concentrates on the road ahead.

When they get to France, she lets the dog wiggle out of her arms into the tiny jumpseat where he unceremoniously vomits all over Bond’s attaché case.

"Pauvre bebe," she says to the dog. "Do you have any napkins?" she asks, reaching for the glove compartment. Bond makes a noise and her hands pause on the latch. Top of the line, kitted-out Aston with an on-board computer, several hidden handguns, medical supplies, what have you, and no bloody napkins. He pulls his handkerchief from his suit pocket, holds it out to her.

This is a drive he has made many times, a pilgrimage of sorts. His body knows the route by heart, his mind blankly assessing turns, twists, the other cars around them. It's a long drive. It's a silent drive. Eva hasn't said more than a few sentences since they left London except to the dog. Bond, never much of a conversationalist himself, finds her lack of chatter disconcerting.

When they stop at a small village to let the dog out, she hands him the leash, stuffing it unceremoniously into his hand even as she tries carefully not to touch his skin. She goes into the small, chain convenience store whose door opens with a tinkling of bells.

Bond stares down at the dog who studiously ignores him for a moment before it lifts his leg onto Bond's bespoke Saville Row Derbies.

"Dammit, those were expensive," he tells the dog irritably, yanking the leash, causing the little beast to bark sharply at him. He's shushing it as it dances at the end of its leash when she returns, hurrying quickly over to them, a plastic bottle clutched in one hand.

"What have you done to him?" she demands, crouching before him and gathering the little terror into her arms, petting it and cooing soothing words.

"What have I done?" he snaps. "Your dog just pissed on my shoes."

She stares for a moment at his feet, then raises her eyes to looking at him. She's pushed her sunglasses back onto the top of her head. Her eyes dance with laughter.

"Oh," she says, smothering a giggle. "I'm sure you deserved it."

"You're sure I--" he grinds out, staring down at her dark hair. "Are you ready?" he says finally.

She rises from her crouch gracefully, the dog tucked under her arm, into the curve of her waist. "Where are you taking me?" she asks low, quietly. Her eyes are solemn now. She bites her lower lip, stares intently at him.

"There's something I have to show you. Come."

He turns away and walks back towards the Aston. He wonders, for a moment, if she will remain frozen by indecision, but her dislike for him, and he will have to play his hand on this bet and leave her standing here, on the side of the road, in middle of nowhere France. She seems stubborn enough to watch him drive away, her little dog still clutched in her arms.

But after a moment he hears the gravel crunch behind him and she comes abreast of the car, opening the passenger door. She pauses for a moment, starting at him, while the breeze tugs gently on her hair, tossing a strand across her face. The dog wiggles and she releases him back into the car.

"I don't understand you. I'm not sure I want to," she says flatly before climbing into her seat and shutting the door.

Bond gets into the drivers seat, shuts the door, starts the car, and pulls away from the village, out onto the winding road.

 

 

When she sees the signs marking the entrance to the town of Royale, she wishes that she could be surprised. Although her stomach clenches, she also experiences a feeling of relief. Here is something familiar--allegedly familiar, for she has never actually been to Royale, just to a set in the Czech Republic--but it gives her a foreboding sense of déjà vu, and she can't shake the feeling that she's been here before.

He does not, as she expects, take her to that hotel or the casino or anywhere else she could have listed as potential destinations. He drives with a quiet, intense single-mindedness. He uses no map or GPS, and if she was asked, she'd have said she was sure he'd done this same drive many, many times before.

They drive through the town and into the outskirts where he turns off the main road suddenly and goes down a narrow lane that ends in a wide spot outside a small church. To one side sits a well-maintained looking graveyard. She guesses it's old, judging by the size of the trees. She wonders, for a moment, if this is to be her final resting place, but he seems curiously nonviolent towards her even as he violates her possessions and sanity.

He gets out of the car and Eva waits for a moment before she follows. "Stay here, be a good boy," she tells her dog before she climbs out and adjusts her clothing. They feel wrinkled and worn, even though she just put them on clean this morning. Or was it yesterday? She feels curiously out of step with time.

He says nothing to her, merely goes through the gates of the graveyard and makes his way down a row between headstones. Again he walks with a single-minded purpose, not pausing to look or to search, and she has the feeling once more that has been here before. She follows behind him, but slower, reading headstones with interest. She finds something fascinating about reading headstones, with their brief inscriptions, and wondering about the person who now lies beneath.

He stops finally in front of a headstone, but he's looking off into the horizon, hands stuffed into the pockets of his suit trousers. She makes her way over to him, noting the fresh flowers on the grave, which, while not old, has been in place for some number of years, as the sod has re-knit itself into the grass of the lawn and the headstone shows signs of weather. She studies his face for a moment before she looks down at the headstone: VESPER LYND.

"So now you know," he says quietly.

 

 

 

9.

 

The hotel is a quiet agreement. It’s necessary distraction, and it pulls her mind far, far away from the sudden admission that they left, back in that small graveyard. She is exhausted and he seems to understand.

He is at ease, checking them in, smooth, flirting with the desk agent with a charming smile. They know him. She remembers this, filing it away for latter as she stands there quietly, her hand tight around Griffin’s leash. The woman at the desk keeps sneaking looks at Eva and that seems to amuse him. It makes her angry though, furious even, something that goes back and forth between being misplaced and relevant.

“Enjoy your stay, Mr. Bond,” the agent says. She blushes prettily when he takes the keycard from her, and Eva shakes her head, offering a quiet smile to the woman nonetheless.

They walk to the elevator and Eva reaches down to pick up Griffin, pulling him into her arms. He is watching them; Griffin as he nuzzles her face, aware of her apparent discomfort. She knows exactly what she saw, she thinks. But even that seems daunting in itself.

“Here we are,” Bond says, and the elevator opens to their floor. They walk together to their room, passing a couple who smiles at them in turn. She wants to ask him about clothes and time, stupid, insignificant things that flash in her mind. Misplaced, she tells herself, misplaced.

His phone rings. When he opens the door to their room, she brushes by him without a second glance. She can’t.

Griffin tumbles down onto the floor, darting past them and under the bed. Eva drops her coat, grabbing her cigarettes and moving into the bathroom. Her hands are shaking and the man - Bond, she reminds herself again - is talking quietly on his phone. She manages to shut the door behind her.

Her eyes dart around. She tosses her cigarettes onto the sink, pulling one out and sliding into her mouth. There are matches hidden behind a sewing kit in the corner, tucked against a small bottle of shampoo and conditioner. She drops them twice.

"What are you doing?"

She doesn't answer. She manages to light her cigarette.

"You'll have to talk to me." He doesn't hide his amusement. "Eventually," he says dryly.

She exhales first. Her gaze lingers on the smoke that slides out of her mouth, circling the space in front of her. She moves to the tub then, a large basin resting next to a window. She hesitates for a moment.

"It's strange," he says softly, and he's watching her of course, carefully, his gaze heavy as she turns on the water. "I don't know how to look at you quite yet."

"Reassuring," she mutters. She slides her cigarette into her mouth.

He snorts. "She speaks."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

She looks at him, and then away, climbing into the tub and sinking against it. Her hair falls into her eyes and over her shoulders as she leans forward and turns the water on. It runs over her legs, into her jeans, and he chuckles. It only makes her angrier.

"You're terribly odd," he comments, and moves to sit on the edge of the tub. Her gaze stays leveled at the mirror in front of her. He turns the water off. "Are you like this with him too?"

She shoots him a dark look. The corners of his mouth tug. She pulls the cigarette from her mouth and leans back.

"You act like this is happening just to you," she says.

He chuckles. "And you don't?"

"You broke into my flat."

He smirks. "Did I?"

"Ass," she mutters. She’s cold and it happens fast. Her hand drops into the water, her fingers brushing lazily over her knee. She catches him watching. “Sorry about your car,” she offers, and she makes no attempt to conceal her amusement, watching as he narrows his eyes. “Griffin usually travels so well.”

Bond’s lip curls. His eyes flash. He leans over her too, dropping his hand against the edge of the tub. His fingers pull the cigarette from her mouth.

“It’s a terrible habit,” he says.

Her hand snaps forward and she catches his wrist, bringing his hand back to her. She leans in, her lips sliding around the cigarette in his fingers. He does not pull back from her.

Her gaze meets his. Her reply is sharp. “You broke into my flat.”

He wrinkles his nose. She cannot decide if she just lost her mind and that is why she’s just come to accept that whatever is happening is, in fact, happening. She does not want to be France. She is supposed to be in New York tomorrow and there are obligations and contracts to think about. She doesn’t know how to deal with that quite yet.

“I miss him,” she says suddenly, and it falls, just falls, in an odd sort of way. It’s harmless right now and she looks at him directly, her eyes bright. He sinks back, looking away. She can tell he’s uncomfortable. Good, she thinks. What did you expect? “You make me miss him,” she murmurs. “I suppose we’re even in someway.”

“Not by far,” he mutters.

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

He looks back at her, his eyes narrowing. She’s numb to feeling any sort of thing but anger and her ears have long stopped ringing.

“I’m not a mind-reader,” she adds quietly.

“I hate dogs,” he says.

She snorts, rolling her eyes. She turns away, sliding her cigarette back into her mouth. Exhaling, she watches the smoke slide in front of her. The water is starting to dull, not too hot, and not too cold. She shivers a little.

“You also hate the way I look at you,” she says suddenly. She does not look at him. Her fingers brush against the edge of the tub. “It goes deeper than that, I suppose. But you won’t let me see why.”

“Do you want to know why?”

“I suppose you’ll tell me.”

He leans forward. “Will you ask?”

She blinks. Now, they’re talking about her. She doesn’t understand, but she just knows. The thought frightens her. She swallows. “What?”

“Will you ask?” he repeats, and he is calm, almost patient – it’s patronizing. He is different and she doesn’t like it. “The question, of course,” he drawls then.

It amuses him, she decides, to counter her word for word. It’s a test of some sort and she has no idea what to make of it. She doesn’t move back either, she can’t, and lets her arm dangle off of the side, her fingers wiggling slightly. She doesn’t drop her cigarette. She’s careful with answering, and when she looks up again, he’s moved in, over her, and his fingers brush against her forehead. He pushes her hair away from her eyes. She’s struck by the gesture and her stomach starts to roll. She isn’t sure, god she isn’t sure.

“What are you doing?” she asks softly. He smirks. His fingers start to pull through her hair. She hears her barrette snap and his hand drags her hair in front of her, between them, and she cannot move.

He pushes himself away, standing. They’re quiet again.

 

 

Eva takes the bed. Griffin is sitting on the edge, staring at Bond when she comes out of the bathroom, and the man returns the look with a well-intentioned glare.

She snorts. Her fingers tighten the belt around her waist. “I am supposed to be in New York,” she tells him. “I have to make a call.”

He shrugs. “So make the call.”

She bites her tongue, moving to the bed. When she sits, Griffin jumps down and heads to the bathroom. Her clothes lie in a heap on the ground. She does not know where her phone is and Bond, still leaning against the dressers, is watching her, almost waiting for her to ask. She cannot remember if this is the second or third day.

“Are you going to make the call?” he asks, and she bites her tongue, shifting back to rest against the headboard. Her fingers brush over the keys and she’s trying to remember what to do. She tries to ignore, but he pushes himself away from the dressers and comes to sit on the bed.

“I’m going to make the call.”

He scoffs. “I am,” she insists, and she’s glaring at him, throat dry.

“Of course,” he says.

They stare at each other until Eva breaks the moment, until she has to break the moment; there’s something uncomfortable, uncanny, and exhausting. You look so much like him, she wants to say.

Instead she’s on the phone with just her assistant, her assistant who nearly has a meltdown at the strange, unfortunate scene Eva and Bond left behind at her flat. There’s inquires about contracts and schedules and she feigns partial illness, partial anxiety, something that she rarely uses. But Bond watching and Bond is careful with his watching. She can feel him pull her apart. She doesn’t like that at all.

When she hangs up, he shakes head. “Wow.”

“Don’t be patronizing,” she murmurs, and he snorts, amused. “I mean it,” she says. “I can’t exactly –”

“Can’t exactly what?” he asks. He leans back on the bed, resting his hands back onto the blanket. She swallows. He cocks his head to the side. “Oh,” he says. He seems disappointed. “You’re afraid of me still.”

She looks away.

 

 

“I’m tired,” she says to him, later. This is after the phone, well-meaning calls, of course, after he turns the television, but doesn’t really watch it. She’s already lost track of time. She manages to stay on the bed, Griffin curled in her lap.

Bond lingers in the frame of the bathroom door. His shirt is off, dropped into the pile of her clothes. She is trying not to stare; there are scars, lots of scars, long and thin and terribly faint – she only catches them because he leans too close, and the angle at the door is just that easy. Or maybe she’s just deciding that she needs to see them.

“You can sleep,” he says, and if he sees her watching, he lets her have that moment. He rolls his neck to the side. There’s a crack. “I’m going to shower. Then we’ll talk about dinner.”

“You’ll feed me?”

Her voice is dry. He chuckles, surprised. She manages a faint smile, shaking her head. Her hand brushes over her robe. It keeps rising away from her knee. This is not what she wants to talk about. But he’s holding her gaze, suddenly and too soon; the corners of her mouth stay framed into that smile, and there’s this taste in her mouth.

Bond clears his throat. “You’re still terribly odd.”

“I manage,” she shrugs.

She waits until he disappears again though, listening to the door as it shuts – not at all the way, she notices. She doesn’t care if he doesn’t trust her. It takes too much energy, far too much energy. It’s this feeling too, something that seems buried, waiting for her to react hard and fast. She can’t give that to him. It doesn’t belong to Bond at all.

But the sound of the shower hits too, muffled through the cracks of the door. Eva watches Griffin as he wiggles out of her lap, jumping to the floor to march over to the bathroom. He sits and she lets out a little laugh, sharp as she reaches to grab the phone. She pauses. This is not a good idea.

Griffin starts to growl. “Sweetheart,” she scolds.

Her fingers move over the keys and she’s hoping, hoping that she remembers her voicemail number because she’s sure there’s enough there to get her overwhelmed and anxious. She half-expects her mother, frantic and angry. There’s her agent, of course. A call she’s definitely avoiding.

Daniel’s voice fills the room.

“Green.”

Her eyes close. Her shoulders lock. “Green, I don’t know – fucking hell – I’m sorry, you know? I’m sorry. I don’t like fighting. I want to talk this out. I need to talk this out with you, you and me, Green. Is that what we always said?”

Eva’s hands press against her face, her fingers clutching her temples. She tries to swallow. Griffin starts to growl again.

“We’ve never fought like this.” Daniel pauses. There’s a murmur in the background; she cannot tell if it’s reassuring or not. “I don’t like this,” he repeats. He sounds tired. “I worry like hell about you too – listen, call me. Please? Just call me and let me know … I’ll – I even stick around a couple of extra days in New York, if that’s where you’re headed.” He chuckles. “I should remember, right? I can see you sitting there, hating me – it’s always been written on your face, you know?”

“I hate you,” she mutters, out loud. She laughs then. Her eyes start to burn and the sound seems so unexpected in the room.

She listens to Daniel sigh too. There’s a rustle. She hears a door shut, but she looks up and sees that the bathroom door is still closed. It isn’t Bond, but she doesn’t breathe.

“Please,” Daniel says. “Just – just call me, Green.”

The sound of him hanging up the phone is louder than she expects. Her hand is still hovering over the phone. She blinks. The bathroom door opens.

When she looks up, Bond has returned to stand against the doorway. Griffin doesn’t move, but his tail starts to wag. She watches as Bond’s mouth twitches. She doesn’t like the way he’s suddenly looking at her – that cold, almost too objective curiosity. He’s waiting for her, she thinks.

“So that was him,” Bond murmurs, and he nods towards the phone. He doesn’t even hide that he was listening. She shouldn’t be surprised. “Are you two together?” he asks.

“Don’t be stupid,” she snaps. He chuckles. “You know the answer to that. Probably better than I do.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, come on.”

Bond shrugs. “You said it.”

He pulls a towel from behind him, rubbing it into his skin. When he steps into the room, she sees that his hair is wet. She wonders how much he’s actually heard. There is too much of her who doesn’t want to know. He comes to the bed though, sitting by her legs.

They haven’t talked about the room. They haven’t talked about the bed and suddenly, Eva is overwhelmed by her own need for space. She pulls her legs back, closer, and then reaches for one of the blankets to cover herself. Her hands smooth over her knees and Bond scoffs softly.

“Stop it,” he says.

“I am not afraid of you,” she counters.

“You’re tense.” He leans forward. She catches a scar on his hip. It’s light and it might be the angle. It might even be a mistake. But she doesn’t look at him. She focuses on the scar. “You’re tense,” he says again. “And that’s not going to work. I think you know that too.”

“I don’t,” she murmurs.

“You’re a terrible liar, Green.”

Her eyes widen. Her gaze snaps up and she stares at him. Her mouth opens. “Don’t – ” call me that, she doesn’t finish. She can’t. Her throat dries and it’s a strange pull to anxiety, her stomach churning, and the fact of the matter is no more than how easy it is for him to sound just like Daniel. It feels like some unwritten rule of intimacy has just been broken. What else, she wonders, is he going to take away from her.

But she just sits there too. There is no place to go. Her hands pull away from her knees and then she pushes herself to stand. She reaches for her cigarettes. Fumbling with the box, she manages to slide one into her mouth.

“You’re in love with him,” he guesses.

“Shut up,” she murmurs. It’s half-hearted. “Just –”

“Is that it?” he continues.

Her eyes close. She cannot remember where she put the matches.

The room is starting to feel small, entirely too small, and it’s hard not to remember that she was, only a few days ago, standing graveside with him, staring at a name that was supposed to be her. He is expecting a confession, but she does not know if she can give that to him.

But she’s talking then, and she turns back, watching him as he thrusts the matches into her hand. “We’ve been friends for years,” she says. “It’s only natural, I suppose. Or –” she pauses, laughing tiredly. “I don’t know. I don’t remember when I, it,” she corrects herself, “started. It just happened that I knew one day and that it was him, and that it was that I couldn’t have him beyond the way he was already in my life as.”

She moves back. She leans against the wall. The robe opens a little over her legs and her breasts. She slides an arm around her waist almost unconsciously, studying Griffin as he seems to be sleeping by the bathroom door. She shakes her head, rubbing her eyes.

“I’m not her.” She meets Bond’s gaze, lighting her cigarette. “And you’re not him. How entirely appropriate, I suppose.”

He snorts.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she adds.

He doesn’t laugh. She almost expects him. She corrects herself again and thinks he’s not him. She doesn’t know if it’s the right thing to say, nor does she care, and her lips are dry. She slides her tongue along the bottom, then her teeth slip against the skin. She tries to study the cigarette in her hands.

“Does it really bother you?” he asks, and she starts thinking about tones and weight, the way he talks to her and the sound of his voice. She tries to pick out a difference. “Me, watching you.”

“Do you really want to get into this?”

“You do.”

She rolls her eyes. “Stop being intentionally vague.”

“You could have anyone,” he offers, and when she scoffs, he studies her curiously. “You don’t think so?”

Her mouth curls a little. “You’re trying to figure me out,” she says.

“I’ve seen your films.”

Eva starts to laugh. She starts to really laugh, the sound causing Griffin to perk up from his place at the bathroom door. She pushes herself away from the wall and manages to go back to the bed.

She sits next to him and the sheets sink against her legs, just as she draws them onto the bed. They sit side by side and it’s rather odd, considering, but she ignores it and puts her cigarette out on the ashtray by the bed. Her hands smooth over her lap and she feels herself lean against him, only slightly. It’s easier when she doesn’t look at him.

“And I suppose,” she says, “that because you’ve seen my films, you’ve got it all down – in fact, I don’t really know if I should be frightened or cautiously flattered. Maybe it’s a little of both.”

He chuckles. “You enjoy yourself.”

She feels surprised when he says it. Her lips quirk.

“You do,” he says. There’s no insistence. “It’s obvious, given your … choices.”

She laughs again, the sound warmer. She turns to look at him without thinking. Her gaze brightens and she’s amused – he doesn’t like her films, she thinks. Somehow the idea completely delights her.

“You can tell me you don’t like them.”

“I don’t like them.”

She laughs harder. It’s been a series of things, really, of things that if she were to tell anyone, nobody would believe her. She doesn’t care either. It’s unimportant and so weird that suddenly they’re having this small moment and she knows nothing more about him other than he’s incredibly dangerous and he loved a dead woman who looks just like her.

When she looks up at him again, his gaze has softened. He looks a little lost, but then hides it, quickly, behind some kind of amusement.

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

“For what?”

She doesn’t answer him. It might be the way he’s looking at her, accidentally or not; she can tell that he’s looking at her, and for whatever strange, strange reason it makes her lean forward. Her mouth brushes against his jaw.

It’s just a feeling, nothing overly romantic or heavy. Her mouth stays soft over his skin, her finger grazing over his hand next to her on the bed and she swears, swears he makes some kind of sound – it’s just not for her to tell. She does feel his hand press against her hip. He does not draw her close, but it signals something, something different. She says nothing when she pulls away and her head drops against his shoulder.

It’s brief. It doesn’t matter who draws back first.

They were almost different people.

 

 

 

11.

 

The phone rings in the middle of the night.

He answers it before she can even fully awaken, his voice just a low indistinct murmur. "Yes, tomorrow," is all she can remember hearing before she falls back asleep.

She walks the dog early each morning along the beach. He usually has left before she awakens, so it's a surprise when she groggily opens her eyes that day to see him sitting there, two paper cups of coffee in his hands. He holds one out silently to her, and she takes it, clutching the duvet to her chest as she sits up and sips it.

"I need to talk to you," he says and she nods. "Later, though. Not here." He looks suspiciously around the expensively wallpapered walls.

"I have to walk Griffin," she offers, setting her coffee down and sliding out the opposite side of the bed.

"Ten minutes," he says curtly and she raises her brows at his autocratic command, shaking her head as she goes into the bathroom.

 

 

They’re walking along the beach. She has that odious dog with her, though, to be fair, he’s somewhat grown accustomed to it, if not fond. They've come to some sort of truce, which seems to please her.

"I have to go away," he says to her as they walk along the promenade down towards the sand. "The office has recalled me."

"Oh, okay." She nods, takes a swallow from what now has to be lukewarm coffee.

"You don't have to stay here," he says, squinting at the morning sun as he stares down the beach.

It’s a beach he knows well. He avoids the girls along it pretending to throw themselves into the waves. He likes to think he’s less foolish, less noble, but next to him, her feet sinking into the sand, long hair whipping backwards, is a movie star he’s basically kidnapped. Bond’s mouth quirks up into a smirk and he looks down at her bowed head. She looks up, like she knows he’s looking at her.

It’s hard to describe the exact noise a camera shutter makes, especially from affair, the winds and the waves of the sea obscuring it, but Bond’s well trained ears know the sound and he looks up, head swiveling around to source the sound. He sees tourists, up early, pausing to gawk at the sea and sand and sky. There are other people, like them, alone or in pairs, walking dogs or just walking, heads slightly bowed. And then there is the fat man leaning against the side of the Citron with the professional looking camera and a telephoto lens.

His hand goes instantly inside his coat. "One moment," he says, allowing Eva to pass him before he draws his weapon. There's another click of the shutter and her steps hesitate.

"What are you--" she asks, looking up towards where he's veered away from her suddenly, moving back towards the promenade, his gun held close to the outside of his thigh. She follows the line of his sight and sees the fat man, swears. Her stomach clenches. This will be a disaster.

"Bond," she hisses harshly, hurrying after him, hoping no one hears what she is calling him, though in this town, he seems well-known if not renown. "James. James!" She reaches out, grabbing at him. She forgets about the gun.

He expected her to listen and when she touches him, swings around, the handgun ready. She stumbles back, falling into the sand. What happened next he blames entirely on the dog, who he, England's premiere spy, trips on, falling into the sand. It's a small blessing his gun doesn't discharge as he goes to his knees in the sand on top of her.

The dog is barking now, thinking this is all some clever game, prancing and bouncing about in the sand, dragging the leash Eva still holds around them in a tangle. Bond curses the dog. Eva is laughing now, trying to extract her wrist from the taunt lead.

"Of course," she says between bubbles of hysterical laughter. "Of course this would happen."

Bond struggles to his feet, beating sand off his clothes before he reaches a hand down to her. She pauses, staring up at him for a moment from where she lies prone in the sand before she takes his hand. He pulls her up harder than she expects and she bumps into him, her fingers grabbing at his biceps before she hurriedly lets go, takes a step back. He puts the gun back in his coat, whistles for the wayward dog who has gone to mark a clump of seagrass a few feet away.

"Thank you," she says as she brushes sand from her clothes.

"Mmm," he replies, looking sharply back at the promenade and the empty space where a man has just been.

"This could be a disaster," she tries to tell him, her voice urgent as they make their way back to the hotel.

He shakes his head, mind already on business. "I'll take care of it," he says. "It's what I do. I'll see you in a few days, if you're still here."

"The sea is nice," she allows. "But I won't wait for you."

He leaves her standing near the entrance to the hotel, watching him drive away.

 

 

 

The phone rings again late the next morning. She's up, but lounging on the bed in a robe, sipping coffee, flipping through Le Monde. It's the line to the room. It's unexpected.

"Bonjour?"

"Oh my God you tricky bitch. I thought you were taking a mental health spa break!"

"What?" It's her agent, excited on the line. "How did you get this number."

"Not easily," she laughs. "My assistant probably called every hotel in Royale before she got you. God, her French is awful. C'est la vie. Anyway, I cannot believe you didn't confide in me."

"Confide in you about what?" She has a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"No need to be so cagey. It's all over the gossip rags and the internet. Hello? Hello?"

She's dropped the handset of the phone onto the bed and is yanking a coat on over her robe. She stuffs her feet into the first shoes she sees and hurries out, leaving poor Griffin to whine softly at the door.

She pauses by the front desk, thankfully quiet. "Un kiosque à journaux, s'il vous plaît?" she asks in an agitated tone, following the directions out into the street and around the corner to the stand where the corners of the newspapers flutter softly in the breeze and glossy magazine covers scream headlines at her in orange, red, yellow, and pink.

"Have the English gossip magazines come in yet?" she asks the man sitting on a fold-up stool, smoking a cigarette. He squints at her, nods, waves the cigarette in a vague direction at the stand. She thanks him and begins her search. It doesn't take long. There it is, a picture of the two of them in the sand, on the cover of all the main gossip rags, admittedly only a small postage-stamp sized picture in the corner.

"Son of a bitch," she swears through her teeth. "Take care of it like hell. Merci, Monsieur."

 

 

 

“I’m afraid I’ve misplaced my key,” he tells the girl at the desk charmingly. She smiles back, a blush staining her cheeks as she magnetizes a new plastic card.

“There you are, Mister Bond,” she says softly.

“Cheers,” he replies with a nod, taking the key. As he turns away from the desk, the smile falls from his face.

He takes the elevator upstairs and slots the key into the right door. He looks around, surveying the room. He picks discarded clothing up off the floor, looking at the cosmetics in the bathroom, notes the way the two armchairs have been pulled closer to the sofa.

He’s sitting on the bed when she comes in. She gasps slightly.

“I though… I thought you’d gone out,” she says quietly. She’s drawn and pale. She doesn’t show her week at the seaside on her face.

The dog lunges forward on his leash and she unclips him absently, by habit. Griffin gallops up to him, pauses, then launches himself into an idiotic dance of joy, barking a cheerful greeting that is more talking dog on Youtube than bark before launching himself up onto the bed to roll around in the comforter. He reaches out, rubs the dog absently.

“Jesus, Daniel,” she says like he’s a lifesaver and she’s a drowning woman. He’s worried she might swoon, like some terrible film, but she just grabs the door, closing it softly behind herself before leaning back against it. On the bed, Griffin is still doing roadies in the duvet, ecstatic at his presence.

“Alright, Green?” he asks, forcing his mouth to smile.

"As well as could be expected. Did you--"

"Your mother has my phone number. Were you aware of this?"

"What? No. I'm sorry. Has she been calling you?"

"Ye-es," he says slowly, drawling the word with a laugh. "Many people have been calling me. For good reason."

"Oh. Oh." She presses a hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I can explain."

He pats the bed beside himself. Griffin accepts the invitation, crawling closer on his stomach to nuzzle Daniel's hand. Eva nods, takes a deep, composing breath, before she crosses over to sit beside him, hugging her knees to her chest, her ballet flats falling from her feet to the floor.

She stares at him silently for a long time, searching his face, her cheek resting on her knees. She begins to laugh quietly, then louder and he turns towards her.

"Green?" he says as she lets go of her legs and tips over, face down, onto the mattress convulsing with hysterical laughter. "Are you alright?" He puts a hand on her shoulder, rubs her upper arm soothingly.

She shakes her head, her hair going everywhere.

"I--I don't even know where to begin."


	3. I'm Your Villain

12.

 

Daniel's hands slide into her hair.

His fingers press under its weight, drawing themselves against her neck. When they pull forward, she manages to look up. His mouth curls.

"I haven't - " she stops herself, laughing. The sound thickens when her throat catches. Eva lifts a hand to press against her skin. "I haven't lost my mind," she says quietly, dryly. "It's a bit more complicated than that I suppose - I'm sorry about my mother."

He waves a hand. She raises an eyebrow. He shrugs as if to say it was going to happen eventually. There's something so ridiculous about that, but so him and necessary and funny - it's reassuring and she finds herself leaning forward, brushing her mouth against his shoulder.

She lets out a sigh. "It's you," she says again, and he laughs.

They're silent though. He's waiting for her and the reality of it is that she doesn't know where to begin, how to begin - her agent, her assistant, and obviously her family all think she's halfway into some sort of nervous breakdown. She can hear her mother in her head, imagining the sordid reasoning she gave to Daniel to check up on her. I couldn't stop you, she used to say, from being an actor.

But her mouth opens, and tries once more, starting, "I met someone," she manages. Her nose wrinkles and she doesn't like the way it sounds. "Or rather," she says, "someone decided to come and meet me. I think I have a few uncomfortable things in common with someone that was once close to him or something."

"Stop trying to be diplomatic," he murmurs. His mouth brushes into her hair.

She snorts.

"I mean it," he says. "You're talking in circles."

If only you knew, Eva thinks. "You - he looks like you," she mumbles. She pulls back, curling her hands over her knee. She looks to the floor watching Griffin as he starts to wander around the room. "He's - well, I haven't got a clue as to why. But he's - the one that broke into my flat. And um, he - oh god. Oh god."

Her hands move to cover her face. She swallows back her laughter, swearing softly. Daniel's hand drops over her shoulder.

"I mean it," she breathes. "He looks like you. The same eyes. That stupid smirk that you do so well when you're trying to antagonize me. At first I've thought the two of you carried yourselves the same way - considering he was following me and then broke into my flat and then he brought or rather ... his employer brought him to come clean and now I'm in the middle of fucking - I look like a dead woman." She looks up at him. Her eyes are wide. She does not correct herself. "And he looks just like you."

Daniel stares at her. Nothing happens; she cannot tell what he's thinking. In a way he is like Bond, his expression set and blank. She cannot tell whose eyes brighter, or if his eyes are really supposed to be that blue. She pushes herself up to stand, stumbling forward. Daniel catches her arm, muttering under his breath. She doesn't hear what he says.

"You don't believe me," she says. Her throat catches.

"I - "

"You don't."

He says nothing, steadying them. Griffin scurries from somewhere behind them, cutting between the two of them. Daniel's hand tightens around her arm. She bites her lip and then lowers herself back to the bed, sitting next to him and then looking away.

Her stomach is in knots. "Why would I lie to you?"

He sighs. "I didn't - I'm not saying you are," he tells her. "You have to - how the hell am I supposed to take this, Green? You know?"

She rubs her eyes.

"Look. It's not - why did you even come here?"

Her mouth opens. She shakes her head. It happens so slowly, all over again; she feels removed from herself, piece by piece, wanting to laugh but not entirely sure where to even go.

"You should see him," she murmurs. Daniel scoffs. "I - it made sense at the time," she says carefully. "There was - something happened. And he, he - god, I suppose he reacted properly. I mean I don't quite understand why he decided ... none of this is supposed to make sense," she tells him.

"You said he looks like me."

"You saw the photos."

"Of course, I did," Daniel snaps. He drops back, against the bed. His arms stretching out to hold himself up. "This whole goddamn has made a mess. I don't even know what to say about those."

She shakes her head. "I'm not asking you to say anything."

"No?"

He raises an eyebrow.

"Don't be stupid," she mutters.

"You've never -"

She groans. Griffin rushes back to bed, jumping. She reaches for him, picking him up and letting the dog settle in her lap.

"I mean it," she warns. "The last thing I want to do is talk about us this way. The very last thing."

Daniel snort. "He looks like me. I think that's enough reason to."

"He's not here."

"Goddamn it," he mutters.

She rolls her eyes. It takes everything she has not to get back up again, to pace, to do something with her hands because the fact of the matter is that Daniel makes her just as nervous and she doesn't like how any of this feels. She should be used to this, she thinks. It makes her want to laugh again.

"Where is he?" Daniel ask, and she sighs, groaning again. She smacks his arm and he lets out a laugh, low and curled with frustration. It would be easy to blame Bond. Then again, she's not entirely sure if she can.

"He protected me," she says awkwardly.

"That doesn't answer the question, Green."

Eva shrugs.

"Then again," he says, "I don't really know what the hell I'm supposed to ask you - where I should start or end or how the hell I'm supposed to explain the fucking pictures splashed across the tabloids."

She can only repeat herself, she thinks. Her frustration is digging into her suddenly, peeling back at the careful walls that she had put up since being here. I'll take care of this. Of course, she thinks. Of course this coming back this way. Suddenly she is too aware that there's this lack of space between her and Daniel, and now her and Bond, but Bond, nowhere to be seen of course, isn't here to step up to any of this.

"I can only apologize," she murmurs.

"But you won't."

She meets his gaze, surprised. The corners of his mouth twitch.

"No."

"No?" he asks, and he leans in, brushing his fingers against her face. He pushes her hair out of her eyes. "Stop trying to hide," he murmurs.

Her breath catches, she cannot look away, and he won't let her look away; this is the difference, she begins to think, between the two of them. This is Daniel who makes her feel ridiculously foolish. There is the flush that starts to grow, spread, and crawl against her throat, her neck, and she tries desperately to look away but she can't, caught mid-turn as his fingers wrap around her chin.

His eyes are bright again and she can only look at him under her lashes, her tongue sliding over her lip. He makes a soft sound and all she can think is oh god oh god not now as her heart starts to race.

"I'm not scared of you," she finds herself saying. Her voice is thick and he, he laughs. His gaze is heavy. "Don't think for a moment -"

"Never," he swears. He's grinning, just a little.

"What -" he leans in, and his mouth grazes hers, just briefly, just enough for her breath to catch and to make sound against his mouth again. Her throat is dry and her eyes flutter shut. She cannot look at him but she can feel him pull back, maybe a little, maybe more, but she can taste his sigh.

He's too close.

 

Bond hears the murmur of the man's voice coming from the room and pauses outside it, arm and hand half extended to turn the knob. She is speaking in a quick, low, urgent tone that he doesn't recognize because it isn't one of stress. It's humorously resigned. The man laughs several times and he hears a note of annoyance enter her voice. Whoever it is, he would bet they had known each other quite some time.

He drops his hand to the side and waits for a moment listening, considering. Then he turns and walks to the door to the room next to theirs and pauses again to listen. Nothing.

It's an easy thing to break into hotels these days, even the fancy ones. Most use electronic keylocks, which are too easy to fool, and those that still use keys generally have older locks that can be opened with a credit card stuffed between the door and the jamb, let along requiring a lockpick. The door gives under his touch and he enters quietly. It is, for most, too early to be abed, but he is nothing but cautious, something this entire affair has been sadly lack, no thanks to him.

The contents of the room do not interest him and after closing the door behind himself, he moves across to the French doors that give way onto the small balcony without a second glance. The doors to their room are closed, which pleases him. They are less likely to hear as he climbs from one small Juliet balcony to the next, which is precisely his plan. It goes off without a hitch. The doors are not far apart, he is in fine health, and he does not have to worry that a bullet is about to be put into his back. It's a quick leap and he lands easily grasping the opposite railings with a small grunt for effort and only the most necessary of thuds of his body hitting the rails.

He levers himself over the rails quietly, pausing on the balcony to adjust his jacket. The conversation in the other room continues without a pause. He has not been heard. This pleases him, in a professional way, but also somehow annoys him on a personal level. He shakes the feeling off and approaches the door. It's curtained and the lights are dim, so he doesn't even have to try very hard to be unseen, leaning casually next to the jamb to listen. Anyone passing outside would see a man appearing to smoke a cigarette, though he hasn't one in his hand, but people see what they expect. And rarely do they suspect a British spy to be lurking on a balcony in mid-afternoon.

If this had been an operation, he could have pinpointed the exact moment to burst into the room, but somehow, he's become the villain in this charade. There is no girl for him to rescue, no bad guy to put a bullet in. There's just him and her and this and that. And now there is someone else--another man--and the way this farce is going, he won't be a villain either. Bond sighs, closing his eyes a brief moment, like a man asking the saints for patience, and then he opens his clear blue gaze, staring unseeingly out at Royale, and listens.

And he waits. He can just hear the murmur of their voices, hers just distinct enough to understand, but the man's replies are low and quiet and only his laugh travels very far. And so he waits. And listens. And waits. And listens. It would seem tedious but he's used to it. He breathes quietly. In out. In out.

And then she says something and he replies and there is an abrupt pause that isn't punctuated even by breathing. Something in him--his programming, his gut, his...whatever--says this is the moment. Open the door. And his fingers twist the handle, which is unlocked, and he steps quietly inside, closing the door with the softest click it can possibly make.

He watches them, for what seems like an eternity but has to be less than thirty seconds, his mouth pressed to hers. Her eyes are closed. So are his. It's a kiss that means so much more than any he will ever make. He scorns it in a mental scoff. He covets it. He clears his throat.

They pause in their embrace for a fractional moment and then break away. They stare at each other for a beat too long before their gazes swivel to him, the intruder, the villain. He feels a moment of discomfort, shrugs it off. Her censorious gaze feels nothing new so he swings his eyes to the man. The man who looks like him. The man with his face. The man with his eyes. The man whose mouth quirks like his never will. Never could.

"Well fuck," the man says. "Fuck, Eva, fuck. Fucking hell."

She's laughing again, collapsed into his shoulder. "God, Daniel," she says, gasping for air. "I tried. But you'd never believed it."

"Wouldn't I?" he says, his gaze sliding away to look at her dark hair with a familiar look of affection.

She shakes her head, raises her gaze and they are inches apart. "No," she exhales, her hand rising towards his cheek and then fluttering downwards. Her gaze jerks to him, in the doorway and she sighs again, heavily, as it this weighs upon her.

"Daniel, James. James, Daniel," she introduces them like she's choking on the words, letting herself collapse into the mattress.

"Christ," the man called Daniel says. He remains motionless for a moment except his right hand that reaches for Eva, rubs her back. It's a familiar gesture. It makes Bonds stomach clench. He doesn't recognize the emotion except as possession.

"Jesus. Fuck," the man says and rises after patting her shoulder again, his eyes still on Bond.

"Indeed," he replies, stepping towards the half-empty bottle on the bureau.

The man with his face steps toward it too, hand outstretched towards the two glasses. He pauses, though, half a step from the glasses and laughs again, in his quiet, mocking laugh. "After you, old man," he says and Bond stares at him, at that face that is his but isn't, and takes the first glass in his hand, pouring a healthy measure in before knocking it back, his eyes on this newcomer this whole time, this man, this Daniel, this man she professes so passionately not to love.

"Jesus," he says again before pouring his own drink. He takes it back to the bed, sitting down next to her. The dog jumps up beside them, curling against his back in a sign of familiarity. Bond's upper lip curls and he takes another measure of drink, sips it.

"Eva," he's saying softly, low, soothingly. He's moved the drink to his left hand, has taken a healthy but temperate swallow. He rubs her back with his right hand. He speaks to her quietly. "Green, darling. You have to get up."

She raises her head from the comforter like a dead man. "Christ," she swears softly, moving to bury her face back into the mattress.

"Take a drink," he tells her and she pauses, staring at him through a mass of mused hair before she pushes herself further up on her forearms and takes the glass, rising to a full sitting position, glaring at him over the glass, her eyes flicking worriedly between him and Bond, him and Bond.

He says nothing else, just watches her. They both watch her as she takes a long swallow of her drink. It catches in her throat, burns. She closes her eyes, pushes her hair back from her forehead. She wants to say, "I hope you're happy," to one of the, but it doesn't work with either. Instead she opens her eyes again.

They're eying each other, like dogs in a pissing contest.

"I need a fag," she exhales, pushing the glass back into Daniel's hand. She fumbles for her cigarettes, for the lighter, and for a moment, she thinks Bond leans towards her as if about to aid her but that has to be her imagination.

"You boys enjoy your pissing contest," she sneers around her cigarette as she brushes past Bond, out onto the balcony to smoke in a bitter silence that is anything but restful.

She can hear their voices behind her in a low murmur that should sync but it doesn't. She can pinpoint their tones. Daniel's voice is somehow higher and more rough, more concerned. Bond is cool, too cool, trying too hard.

"So," Bond drawls the moment Eva leaves the room. He toasts Daniel in a mocking gesture.

"Fuck me, not this," the man with his face sighs, tossing back the dregs in the glass she handed him before sashaying out. He doesn't seem to notice it's a bare mouthful. His face is set in a worried grimace that he aims at the opposite wall. The dog whines, still, wiggling to push its head under his free hand.

Bond sneers into his glass, pours another three or maybe five fingers of the premium aged whiskey he bought...a week ago? Five days ago? Whenever. He's entitled. He swallows half of it down in one gulp, eying the man with his face over the rim. He's not what he expected. He doesn't know many actors--hell, he knows no actors except those waitresses in Los Angeles and New York who pretend like they're going somewhere they'll never be. He expected this man to be like him, too much like him, like his clone, like someone he could understand.

He understands nothing about this man.

This man eyes him wryly from the corner of his eye. This man thinks it's acceptable to wear a button-up and a v-neck pullover. This man looks like someone's dad. Someone's dad who is an attractive catalog model, but still: someone's dad. Bond is no one's father. His suits are bespoke, his shoes handmade to measure. This man is expensive, but off-the-rack tailored after the fact. This man doesn't really care there is dog hair all over his $600 wool trousers. This man is everyone he hates. This man is too comfortable. He is a threat. He is no villain. And that is the real issue.

She stares at him like a drowning woman who has been thrown a life preserver. And it should be him she looks at that way, not this hard body Hollywood pretty-boy. It chaffs at him like nothing proverbial he's ever experienced. Hell, even the dog likes this version of him better. He knocks the last of his drink back, pours another, prepares a caustic statement on the back of his tongue that tastes acidic.

"She said you meant nothing to her," he says as his opener, hoping to draw blood. Instead his doppelganger's mouth just quirks upwards, like there is something so humorous about this whole thing.

"I'm sure she did say that," the other man replies after a long while, his voice low and pleasant in a way Bond's can never be, even at his most rational and/or seductive. "She believes it. I do too. It's complicated. You couldn't understand."

"No?" Bond sneers the word flung harshly into the room.

This man, Daniel, laughs, shakes his head. "No. I mean no insult I just..." He raises his gaze and piercing blue eyes meet piercing blue eyes. "You look so much the same but we are nothing, really alike. It's..." He pauses, changes the subject suddenly. "I will kill you if you hurt her."

His instinct is to scoff at this threat but the movie star raises a hand, forestalls him.

"Oh, I know you could kill me in my sleep." He sounds amused. "But I have my ways. We all have connections. Be kind to her. She is fragile. More fragile than you would think."

And Bond has nothing to say to that, because it is something he too has just learned.

 

 

Her hands have stopped shaking.

They talk quietly inside. She imagines the two of them, standing face to face, Bond's mouth snapping into some sort of amused sneer, hard and uncontrollable, and Daniel - oh god, she thinks. And Daniel.

Her fingers rise, brushing against her mouth. Her eyes close and she stands there, over the railing, ready to slump but unable. There is a familiar tension in her body - buried, climbing, wrapping around her like too many old friends. Her lips are dry now as it is; it's the smoke, the taste, and for whatever reason, she can remember when Daniel told her he quit. Habits come and go, Green.

She hears him though. His shoes scrape onto the balcony. There's a scoff, and she remembers Bond too. Her head won't stop spinning. She did not expect this at all, the two of them - her reaction scares her the most.

"Here," Daniel says, and he reaches out from behind her, thrusting his glass into her hand. She scoffs but takes it, her fingers curling around his as she takes the drink. She brings it to her mouth, turning into him. "Sorry, Green," he offers lightly. Over his shoulder, Bond is watching them.

"It's fine," she murmurs.

Bond scoffs. But Daniel doesn't blink.

"Want more?"

She shakes her head as if it explains it all. "It's just whiskey."

His mouth twists and he takes the glass, leaning against the railing next to her. They're quiet. Behind her, she can hear Bond shift around. The sound is only awkward.

"We'll be good," Daniel says.

She snorts. Bond snorts too. When Eva turns slightly, he raises an eyebrow, almost approving of her reaction. She sighs loudly, if not with too much effort, shaking her head again.

"Dinner," she says suddenly. She's not thinking, of course. She's dry too. "We should have dinner. Do you think the two of you can stand it?"

"Of course," Bond says. He holds her gaze. His eyes are dark and his mouth slips into that sharp, now-familiar smirk. It's not entirely cold and for whatever reason, that comforts her too, if not the understanding that she knows a little bit more in the moment.

She relaxes. Just a little bit.

 

 

They are to dine. She has decreed it and neither of them can argue with her. They both have their reasons. If they'd been the sort of men who trusted one another and talked about such things, they'd have found their motives surprisingly similar. But they do not. They merely nod, catch matching blue eyes, look away.

It has to be room service. There is no way they can even check out a second suite without someone noticing there are two men in this hotel with the same face. Luckily it is a suite and comes equipped with a dining area along with the couch. Where everyone will sleep will be a problem for later. Both men are sure she will, wearily, dictate to them their places, though they'd never admit as such. It's more of a gut feeling.

Both refrain from looking more than from the corner of their eyes at the glass walled marble shower in the bathroom.

"Seven o'clock. Dinner," she reminds them wearily as she comes inside from the balcony where she has smoked her umpteenth cigarette of the evening. The scent of smoke clings to her in a way she rarely allows, but she doesn't seem to notice as she collapses onto the bed, tipping slowly over into the duvet.

"Seven," she repeats, her dark lashes fluttering against her pale cheeks. "Sept heur..."

They both watch her and neither man says, "Let her sleep, this has been a long day", but instead they both quietly retire to the sitting area. The dog follows Daniel, hops up into his lap to curl up in a rough-coated bundle as the man checks his smart phone, reads his emails, sends replies. Bond sits silently looking out the window but seeing nothing.

Daniel wants to say something like, "You can turn the television on, you know," but somehow he knows this man does not watch television and would not appreciate the sentiment.

Some internal clock alerts Bond to the time and he rises after awhile. Another person would announce his intentions but he just eyes the man with his face and quits the room to change for dinner. Daniel finishes with his Blackberry and pockets it, rising to rouse Eva. She raises her head blearily from the bed, smiles at him sleepily. It makes him feel sad, somehow.

"Dinner soon. Shall I call down." She pushes her hair back from her face, grimacing. "Yes, I'll have the special. Order what you want."

"And him?"

She smiles, laughs, lets her face settle into a wryly, amused expression. "I'd think you knew better than me what he'd like."

He laughs. "Touché."

He has dressed for dinner. He has grossly under...or over estimated them. She's wearing the same crumpled silk wrap dress she fell asleep in. The man with his face, who he can't think of in any other terms, is wearing a v-neck over a polo shirt or something still. Bond wears a tuxedo. It's after seven; he has dressed for evening.

If he was another man he'd have felt uncomfortable but he wears his suits like a second skin and this is, in some way, a sartorial power play that seems to go over his doppelganger's head. The man just smiles at him wanly and turns back to his conversation with Eva. A tray with cocktails sits on the sideboard; there are four drinks on the round wooden or plastic tray and two on the table. They are all Vespers. He wonders for a moment who ordered them and then dismisses the doubt. It had to have been her, he thinks, a nod to all this.

It could not have been him; Bond himself posses little sense of irony. He doesn't ask, however, just takes the martini glass in hand and drinks a healthy swallow before sitting down, a placating smile in place.

They're smiling together, laughing at some old joke. He feels out of place. He feels, once more, like the villain. Their conversation peters out and they both smile at him, invitingly, but before they can commence with awkward small talk, Daniel's phone rings.

"I have to take this," he says with a grimace, not even trying to sound sorry as he picks up his drink in one hand, the phone in his other pressed to his ear as he moves away out onto the balcony.

"Hello?"

 

 

Daniel will leave in the morning.

They can hear him outside, on the balcony, talking quietly into his phone. Eva still nurses her drink, staring absently into the glass until Bond tosses his napkin to the side. He leans back in his chair.

"Don't," she warns.

His mouth curls. He licks his lips, studying her openly. Daniel's voice gets louder, outside. They both listen.

"He's quite the catch," Bond drawls.

Her eyes flash.

"I didn't see it at first," he continues. His lips twitch. Her fingers drop to the table, picking at her napkin. "But - well," he says deliberately, "you know."

"I don't," she snaps.

She's uncomfortable. By now, she's sure he knows and understands that. There are some things that she cannot hide forever. She draws herself to sit up, her back flat against her chair as her knees pull up against her chest. She wishes for her cigarettes but grabs her glass.

She sighs, feeling guilty. "Sorry," she murmurs.

Bond shakes his head. Without thinking, he says, "The wrong man."

She looks at him, surprised and confused. His eyes narrow and then close. She watches him carefully, not entirely sure what to say about this whole thing, about them, about Daniel being introduced into the equation. She never prepared herself for that, unfairly if anything, knowing that there would be some point, some point where the two of them would have to come face to face with each other. Daniel does not surprise her. But Bond, Bond she doesn't know.

"I wish I understood you," she says quietly. "I wish - I wish I had the right thing to say. But there's no right thing to say, non? Not to this, not to you, not to me - I mean - and be honest - what did you expect out of this?"

He frowns. "I don't lie, Green."

Her mouth opens. He says it without any hesitation, like he's offended that she even considered the fact, that she thought it possible. She doesn't know how to react. There is a laugh outside.

She rubs her eyes. "That's not what I - it's not what I mean," she murmurs.

Bond scoffs. He doesn't have time to answer; Daniel wanders in, half-smiling over his phone. She wonders if it's who she thinks it is. You're better than this, she tells herself. This isn't the first time.

Her legs drop off the chair and Daniel sits next to her, his mouth brushing against her jaw. She flushes uncomfortably.

"Your dinner -"

"It's fine," he catches her, eying Bond. "You didn't have to wait for me."

"We weren't," Bond mutters.

"She was," Daniel says. He glances at Eva. She shrugs. They were barely into the meal as it is. She is not drunk enough for any of this.

"Stop," she tries, and is half-hearted at best, stabbing her fork into a tomato.

It's Daniel that begins conversation again, talking about his trip to Toronto, as if shop-talk was the only thing the two of them ever did. There is something about ghosts and evil houses, the survival of human compassion and family, things that she knows, knows that he hates talking about on principle. I've known you for years, she wants to explain to them both. This isn't you. She wonders if Bond would laugh at her.

He doesn't laugh, she remembers. Her mouth twists.

"What?" Daniel touches her arms, and she's startled, jumping, catching the two of them watching her. She doesn't blush. She shakes her head. She drops her fork and it hits the plate hard; the sound jumps between the three of them and the tomato skids forward, slipping over the end. She scoffs, but doesn't pick it up and easily falls back into the memory of her lack of an appetite.

"You."

She looks up at Daniel.

"You hate talking about work. You hate bringing work home because of what it's done to your last couple of relationships," she says without thinking. "You hate small talk. I shouldn't be saying this, probably, whatever, c'est -" she catches herself, her mouth twisting as Daniel draws back, his eyes narrowing. "Don't look at me like that," she says quietly. She doesn't flinch. She points to Bond. "You're almost a passive version of him."

"You've been holding that in," Daniel mutters.

Her eyes flash. "It's been a long bloody day."

Bond chuckles. Her gaze snaps over to him, watching as he leans back into his seat. Impossibly handsome is her first thought, suddenly, frankly, and out of the blue. Her head is starting to hurt. She presses her fingers to her forehead and he shakes his head too.

"Don't let me stop you," he says dryly.

"You don't get to start either," she breathes.

This isn't about him, and she whirls back to face Daniel, his eyes narrowed, his mouth set, and he is the carbon copy now. She is trying not to get angry at him, at both of them, because it's far too easy and she cannot go through these feeling all over again.

"I am sorry," she says to Daniel, "that somehow, you feel like that this has been one grand inconvenience for you. But don't you dare think that you can all of the sudden pull that with me because I won't stand for it."

Daniel rubs his eyes. "Don't bring us here. This isn't the place for it. I'm sorry that you're angry. But don't bring us - this here."

She can hear it, low and taunt, in his voice, and then see it in the way that he suddenly sits up. There is Bond too, still, but neither she nor Daniel give an indication of an acknowledgment. And if she turned to watch him, she'd see him pick up his drink and stare at them curiously - this would make her angry too.

Instead Eva leans forward, pushing her plate to the side, pushing herself into Daniel's space and asserting her part in this.

"I didn't bring you here." Her voice is soft, steady. "You decided to come."

"This isn't the place," he murmurs.

She's getting angrier and angrier, far from wondering if she should just stop, let this go, and allow them to descend into that uncomfortable silence. She hates the silence more than any of this.

"Then why," she breathes, "are you talking to me like this?"

"Dinner's getting cold," Bond cuts in, his voice bored and hard. Eva's hands tense over the table and when she turns to look at him, to glare, he is watching the two of them with nothing more than mild curiosity. His mouth is framed into some sort of grimace. She doesn't know if he's confused or merely trying to hide that he's confused. She isn't supposed to care.

But she does, suddenly, and there's this sense of anxiety again, that her place between the two of them is going to thrust her into some kind of breakdown. She is too tired for it.

Reaching forward, she grabs her wine. "Fine," she relents. "What? Are you enjoying your steak?" she snarls.

Bond smirks. "It's agreeable."

"Just agreeable?"

"I don't pretend to lie to you," he says calmly.

Eva's throat dries.

"I -" but she stops, is stopped, Daniel's phone crashing into the conversation with a loud, sweeping ring. Her eyes close and Daniel's half-muttered apologies push him to stand, his dinner left to a few small bites. He is already outside, back onto the balcony before she has a chance to breathe, to return to gathering herself up for the moment.

There is never enough time.

He never gives her enough time; she never knows what to do, before or after or even in between, for those brief, sullen seconds that she may or may not be able to tell him something different. She draws back again too, shrinking into her seat and reaching for her wine.

She finishes the glass. She pours the next one. A laugh filters back into the room, and her stomach tightens into knots.

"It's a woman," Bond says quietly. "If you must know."

She doesn't blink. "Don't be cruel," she says.

"You know who it is."

"Does it matter?"

Bond shrugs. "To you," he says. "It matters to you." He pauses to push his glass into his mouth, finishing his scotch. She doesn't remember the scotch with dinner. Then again, she's certain that he understands, at the very least. She cannot be dependent on this though. A part of her doesn't even understand what she's feeling; her mouth purses tightly.

"Do you know why?" she asks then, not stopping herself. The words fall listlessly. "Do you know why it bothers me?"

He shrugs.

"Of course, you don't."

He reaches for the wine. "You don't want me to answer that," he says. Liar, she thinks. Of course, he could very well be telling the truth. There's no help, no way she can tell, and there's another part of her who just doesn't want to know. She doesn't need to know, she tells herself.

But she leans forward and takes the bottle from him; the two of them listen to Daniel murmuring again, alternating between a laugh and a coy, husky, "I won't be long." She isn't jealous, she thinks. She's angry. She's angry that she has to put herself back into this again.

"He told you it was complicated," she says to Bond. She pours herself more wine. The glass seems dangerously small. "And I've told you that he means nothing to me, no, no, not like that."

She meets his gaze. Her eyes are big, brighter, and Bond meets her halfway, leaning closer. His fingers graze hers over the bottle. She hears Daniel promise tomorrow and has never hated herself so much in one, small moment. Her head hurts.

"I've loved him for a very long time," she murmurs.

Bond's expression is full of pity. Her mouth opens, but Daniel comes back. He's straightened, returned to being impossibly handsome in his own, heavy and familiar way. When her mouth closes, Bond turns his gaze onto the other man, easing back into open disdain.

"Food's cold," he says pleasantly.

Daniel rolls his eyes. He pockets his phone, stretching next to her. He fumbles the conversation back into life again. It's inane, and Bond doesn't interject, seemingly attending this for the sole purpose of wearing his ridiculous tux and staring down Daniel as if it were the only thing he was here to do. So Eva talks, her eyes glued to her plate as her fingers begin to slide around the rim of her wine glass again. She doesn't remember drinking wine, suddenly.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," Daniel says, announces really, completely unaware that both Eva and Bond were privy to that part of his telephone conversation. Eva tries not to taste disappointment. She knows the drill. But here, here she's incredibly exhausted and she cannot hide much of it anymore.

"So soon?" she asks.

There are no dry remarks from Bond. She feels his gaze on her.

"Got to get back," Daniel says gently. He touches her arm. She flinches, biting the inside of her mouth. Daniel frowns then too. "Work, Green. And, well - I fly out to Los Angeles soon. I'm only supposed to check on you, of course."

"Of course."

It takes all that she has to push herself back. Her chair is too quiet in the carpet. Griffin is in the bed, curled into his arms. She takes a deep breath, pulling her wine off the table too.

"Don't let me stop you," she manages, and it's as if the whole night has swallowed whatever need to have him here. She wants to disappear, she decides. This used to make her angry once.

"Green -"

She ignores him, heading away from the table. She doesn't go to the balcony, but the bathroom instead, and makes sure to lock the door behind her. The shower is still damp, but she doesn't blink; her eyes go to the tub and her mouth twists in memory of that first day here.

She climbs into it and reaches forward, turning the hot water on. It covers her legs, her knees and when she sinks back, she brings the wine glass to her mouth. Eva does not smile.

She shuts them out.

 

 

She sits in the bath, smoking cigarette after cigarette.

She fumes. She waits. Nothing happens. Somehow, she expects one--or maybe both of them--to come see how she is doing, that she hasn't pulled some sort of grandiose gesture and drowned herself. In some remote corner of her mind she wants to make this into a parallel they'd both understand, but she has thus far ignored the glass-walled marble shower. She's more of a bath girl, herself. She finishes the last cigarette, stubs it out on the floor, drags her lukewarm and sodden body out of the tub.

She pauses for a moment, dripping on the marble, and then angrily discards the idea of a towel. She has drank just that much wine. She is just that much angry.

The door opens easily under her fingers and she stares out at the room, taking it in. Daniel sits on the bed, looking at his phone in an aimless way, Griffin curled up next to him. He pets the dog absently. Bond sits as far away from him as he can manage without being obvious, still in his tuxedo, one ankle crossed over the other knee, studiously casual.

She looks at them, first one then the other. She doesn't know what to say. She feels sort of disappointed, like she expected something. Not some man to hold her as she crouched in a shower that never grew cold--no. Like someone to come talk to her as an adult.

"God," she remarks, shivering. "You are such little boys." She stalks across the room, two pairs of blue eyes on her, and gathers up her pajamas.

Her glare swings across them both, haughty and proud and irritated.

"Children with their doll," she hisses under her breath, moving back into the bathroom, too tipsy to try to rationalize the implication of her words. Why did he order that second and he that third bottle of wine that they both barely drank. Bastards

 

She comes out of the bathroom a long time later, her teeth very clean.

She shoots a haughty glare at both men. Daniel is on his phone; he doesn't seem to notice, not that he would anyway. Bond is busy staring at a wall and doesn't meet her eyes. She doesn't know what to do. She wishes she'd stayed in the bath and called for them a drawling, mocking tone. It's too late now. She pats the mattress, calls Griffin to her.

"Has he been out?" she asks hesitantly to the room.

Daniel makes a gesture she doesn't understand with his hand, covers the mouthpiece of his mobile. "He took him about a half hour ago," he says with an apologetic grimace, tipping his head towards the other man.

Her gaze swerves to Bond and he refuses to meet her eye, refuses to shrug like it's no big deal. She exhales hard through her nose and neither man seems to notice.

"I'm tired," she says, reaching over and turning off the bedside lamp. "It's been such a long week." Griffin snuggles up nest to her, which means he's also snuggling with Daniel.

Her gaze flicks across the room at Her Majesty's Secret Service, who's slept on the couch and chair all week. She smiles, the first real smile in ages.

"Goodnight, James," she murmurs, closing her eyes as she makes a grab fro Griffin, her fingers touching Daniel as she does so. He glances at her and she smiles a different smile. "There's blankets in the armoire," she exhales before rolling over so her back faces them both, pleased and maybe a little less sober than she'd have liked.

 

 

13.

 

She wakes up or maybe she dreams it.

It's all a hazy blur. It's still dark out or the curtains are drawn or both. The bed shifts and her back feels suddenly bare and cold even though she is under the duvet, in her pajamas. She can hear him moving quietly, putting his shoes on, putting his belt back on, picking up his things. The phone clicks against something--keys, card case, whatever--in a loud plastic smack. Bond, she thinks, frowning. He is never this loud. She sighs, huffily. No, he has never slept on the bed, never spooned her even on top of the covers. She rolls over, peers blearily into the darkness.

"Shh," she mumbles, reaching a hand out to swat him but instead she just waves ineffectively in his direction.

He laughs, quietly, coming around to her side of the bed. She rolls back over, stares up at him.

"I have to go," he says, sitting down next to the curve of her hip. She doesn't scoot over, just continues to frown at him. "You're still drunk aren't you?" he says with a low chuckle.

"Shh," she says again. "I'll see you later."

"Of course," he replies, bending his head to kiss her quickly on the mouth.

She still frowns at him.

"Be safe, Green. I'd miss you."

"Sure," she huffs and he stares down at her long enough that she sighs again, flapping one hand and pushing her mused hair away with the other.

"I'll call you. Later. Once this is all sorted."

"Okay," she agrees, suddenly exhausted.

He leans down and kisses her forehead.

"Be safe," he says again, his voice barely more than an exhale.

And then he is gone. She rolls over, snuggling up to her dog, and drifts off. On the sofa, the spy closes his eyes and settles back against the cushions, contemplative.

 

 

"Eva," he is saying quietly but firmly. "Eva." His hand touches her shoulder, shakes it. The sunlight is streaming into the room now, but muted, like the sheer curtains are still across the window.

"Mmm, no," she says, grabbing his hand. "My head hurts. Come back to bed."

He laughs, that low chuckle she knows so well.

"Eva, it's time to get up."

"God, Daniel, just get back in bed," she grouches. Her head is pounding, her mouth is dry, her stomach heaves a little as she rolls over and burrows her face into the pillow, seeking a cool spot.

"Eva," he says again, a note of annoyance entering his voice.

"Fuck off," she moans, batting an angry hand weakly at him.

His shadow over her withdraws and she sighs in relief, snuggling down under the blankets. Why does morning always come too soon? Just as she gets comfortable, the duvet is yanked back and strong arms pick her up.

"Put me down," she moans. "I'll throw up on you."

"Indeed?" he asks in this cool, unflappable voice and it all comes rushing back to her. This isn't Daniel. This is him. Bond.

He takes her into the bathroom, which is blessedly dimmer, and dumps her into the tub, turning the water on and flooding her pajamas.

"Look what you've done," she complains bitterly.

He just raises his brow at her imperiously. "Wash. I'll be back with coffee in fifteen minutes. I expect you to be ready."

She sulks in the tub for several long minutes as the warm water rushes around her, contemplating if she'll meet his demands. Finally, her need for coffee wins and she strips the sodden garments off, tossing them carelessly on the tiles, and washing quickly so she's ready, in a protective terrycloth robe, when he hands her the triple shot latte exactly fifteen minutes later.

 

He takes her to the beach and buys her a second coffee. She has her sunglasses firmly pressed to her face, and even after three ibuprofen, her head still aches. He walks Griffin and they ignore each other.

"I don't usually drink that much," she says, her tone accusing.

"Of course not," he agrees mildly, which just makes her angrier.

"Don't make this about him," she snarls.

"Of course not."

"Or about you."

"Why would it be about me?" he asks quietly, meeting her eyes through her glasses for the first time since he dumped her in the bath a few hours ago.

"I don't know. My head hurts." She looks away, watching the tourists flit along the sand, the surf, the locals out determinedly walking themselves and possibly their dogs. It seems like she's been here months, years, not a mere week. God, what a week. She takes a gulp of her coffee, lets it scald over her tongue and throat but it isn't that hot any more. "Shit," she swears under her breath, taking a shuddery gasp of air. "Shit."

"Eva," he says, his hand touching her arm, pulling her gently to a stop. It's unexpected and she drops her coffee between them. It splashes on his shoes and he stares at it for a moment before those piercing blue eyes swing back up to hers.

"I'm sorry," she says, her breath hitching in her throat. She presses her lips together hard, looks away at the surf.

"No," he says quietly before he laughs, low and bitter. "I am sorry. This is..." He frowns and she looks back at him then, her face expectant. His mouth creases into an ironic smile. "It's my fault. This is my fault." He seems to stumble over the words and his face is suddenly earnestly open and she holds a hand up, pressing her fingers to his lips, forestalling him further comment.

"Thank you," she says, letting her hand drop. She pivots her body towards his, rises on tip-toe. "Thank you." And then she kisses him, full on the mouth.

And strangely his first thought is not of how she tastes or feels, but how warm the sun is, beating down upon their heads, how crisp the sea smells, the pitter-patter of the dog as it paces in the sand beside them. She opens her mouth beneath his, grabs his biceps and leans into him, and that is when it all suddenly becomes focused sharper, crisper, and then mutes and all he can think about is her, not of some long-dead woman, but this movie star who clings to him, with her sad, sweet mouth. He kisses her back. He closes his eyes. He already knows hers are pressed shut, eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks like trapped butterflies. He is glad, suddenly, to be alive and to be kissing this almost-stranger on a beach.

Neither is sure who breaks the kiss, but they step away from each other.

"I'll never be her," she says suddenly, like it's been weighing upon her all this time.

"I know," he says and they both smile sadly at each other. She takes his hand then and they continue down the beach, the dog frolicking beside them like nothing has changed.

 

Daniel's shirt is on the floor. They return to the room and Griffin is pulling at it with a growl.

"I have to - pack," Eva says quietly, and her fingers slide off of Bond's arm, curling back against her hip as they settle into the room. She moves to sit on the bed, watching him as he settles against the couch across from her. They do not smile at each other.

There are things here, she thinks, in this room, that she cannot get back; it has never once occurred to her that this would change her, even in the slightest of ways. She doesn't feel different but she understand and there is something frighteningly indefinable about the reasoning in itself.

She watches Bond though, as his hands slowly move to his cuffs, his fingers working lightly over the buttons. He opens the sleeves, rolling them slowly. She remembers the suitcase somewhere, deep in the closet.

"What will you do?" she asks.

His mouth curls. "Doesn't matter?"

Her gaze drops. She laughs softly. "No," she says. "No, I suppose it doesn't. I promise you I'm not trying to be polite."

He catches her by the jaw though, his fingers surprisingly soft against her skin. He is not gently by any means, but she manages to let him pull her to look up. Her lips are wet, warm even, as she drags her tongue against them. She tries not to swallow. She tries not to give into any kind of quirk that may or may not be a reassurance for him; this isn't Daniel, she thinks - and maybe for the last time - but she cannot look away.

"I don't -" he frowns. "I don't know what to do with you," he tells her.

If she could laugh, this would be the moment, the moment where she just bursts with the kind of restless energy that has been haunting her since this mess began. He is watching her too, waiting for her to do something.

She licks her lips. She pushes herself closer to the edge of the bed, her head tilting up. His fingers slip and his mouth is over hers; there is the slightest hesitation, and his mouth catches against herself, too warm, too easy, and unsettling. It's happening again.

Eva lets him kiss her - or he lets her kiss him - it doesn't matter, it hasn't before, and it's far from the kiss on the beach. Her hands rise, framing his face, her thumbs dragging along his jaw. She kisses him slowly, thoughtfully, as if she were still trying to reassure herself of the differences. But he drags his mouth back over hers, catching her lip with her teeth and then pressing her back into the bed. He is at her hip, his hand sliding over her belly, brushing against her blouse with an open palm. She feels his fingers start to slip underneath.

She catches his hand. "I -"

His mouth curls against hers. She cannot help but laugh too, turning her head away. Her hair spills everywhere. His mouth drops against her shoulder.

"This is a terrible idea," she murmurs. She laughs again, her eyes closing. Her hand covers her mouth. She can feel him sighs into her neck, his mouth puckering against her skin. She doesn't move. "The worst," she adds breathlessly. "This is the worst."

"Are you all right?" he asks. His voice is low. It makes her laugh harder, delighted, if anything else.

"Oui," she says.

She throws her head back, her fingers curling in his hair. She keeps him close to her and maybe, maybe the entire moment is lost. But she is laughing and it feels so inexplicably wonderful not to care all of the sudden. She can feel him make some sort of noise against her throat, grinning, maybe, amused, if only - but Eva doesn't care.

"This is different."

He chuckles. He lifts his head up, his fingers tugging lightly at her hair. She turns back to look at him, still smiling. But that fades too, and Eva sobers, her fingers moving back over his mouth. His eyes darken, but he lets her touch him. He's waiting, she thinks.

"It is," he murmurs. He brushes her hair back, from her eyes.

"So what now?"

"What now?" he echoes.

His fingers hover over her mouth and she leans forward, catching them with her mouth, her lips pressing against the tips. He's too serious then, and he's waiting, waiting for her to just decide.

It happens slowly. His hand drops and she smiles again. "I don't know," she says.

 

 

 

14.

 

It is harder to be back.

She is not alone walking to the baggage claim. Her assistant is chatting warmly to Griffin, pulling his carrier along. She is listening to her agent rattle off her schedule, trying to get her to swear that if she has another mental health vacation to give the proper time.

But it's a quick grab of her things, and then she's half-heartedly ushered into a car to go home. Griffin scrambles out of her assistant's arms and crawls into her lap. She laughs softly as he settles, grateful and tired. She lets her fingers skim the crown of his head.

"Are you all right?" her assistant asks, and Eva throws a smile for a lie, nodding and turning her gaze to the window. It's a quiet drive and somehow, it's too appropriate. She touches her lips too, her mouth slighting into a frown as she remembers that distinct taste.

The other woman touches her arm. "Eva?"

"Fine, fine," she murmurs. "I am - fine. I suppose it's just me ready to get back to work. I've missed it, you know."

"Of course!" her assistant exclaims, delighted and suddenly launching into the schedule for the next couple weeks, unable to hide her happiness at the fact that the actress has finally returned.

Eva's ears start to ring.

 

She is home, later, and there is a large bottle of wine rests on her kitchen table. Her books are in place. Her paintings. There are flowers and a card by the wine, but Eva passes it for the sink instead, grabbing an ashtray and her cigarettes.

She sighs when she slips a cigarette into her mouth. The flat seems so quiet now, and too new, too different, and there is a part of her that suddenly feels completely out of place. She lights her cigarette, pulling it out of her mouth, and then Griffin scurries away from her legs, from the kitchen, barking at the door. He's loud when it opens and she hears Daniel's laughter before even recognizing that it's him.

"You're back," he says from behind her.

"I'm back," she says quietly.

She doesn't turn. She wonders if he expects her to - should it even matter? She listens to Griffin come back into the kitchen too, pressing against her legs. She blows smoke into the air in front of her.

"You left your shirt," she says. "Griffin ruined it though."

"I can get another shirt," he tells her. His mouth twitches, but he doesn't laugh. He is careful.

She waves a lazy hand. "Of course."

He moves behind her, his hand touching her hip. He leans in and brushes his mouth against her jaw. Her eyes close.

"Are you all right?" he asks quietly, and his hand lingers. She forces herself to relax. She thinks she is waiting for herself to feel okay. "Can I do anything?" he asks too. "Besides the wine?"

"That was you," she say dryly. This isn't a question.

"Eva -"

But she cuts him off, her eyes opening as she presses her cigarette, still fresh into the ashtray. She looks up at him and leans in, dropping her forehead against his shoulder. His fingers are in her hair, falling into a sweeping motion, lazy, familiar, and entirely too warm.

"You feel the same," she murmurs.

"Is that good?"

She doesn't answer. There is the girlfriend. There is the career. There are other reasons, tangible reasons. She still presses her mouth into his throat. He still holds her a little closer.

Neither of them moves. This is the same.

 

 

He still goes to Royale each year, a sort of pilgrimage and penance.

There are some things you cannot change, cannot forget, not matter how hard you try or what else happens afterwards. But it's never quite the same after that, though the memory, like his memories of her, fade into a few well-repeated scenes, the rest of it a vague blur of feelings.

He returns to London. He returns to his job. He acts like he did nothing wrong because he doesn't feel he has done anything wrong. M purses her lips at him in a tight line, her eyes boring into him for a pregnant moment when he returns to the office later that week before she nods, barely, imperceptibly to one who didn't know her, and continues with her debrief. He's handled it, dealt with it, neutralized it, whatever--he has moved on. His head is in the game, right where he wants it to be.

It'd be a lie to say that he suddenly grows interested in the cinema, but he googles her from time to time, when he is bored and melancholy, just to see what she is up to. She doesn't contact him for weeks, months, perhaps a year. Then he gets an invite, scrawled hastily in her handwriting. He ignores it for a few days and then sends his regrets.

He has no regrets.

Which is why he shows up at the event anyway, in his crisply pressed tuxedo--as always. The man at the door calls him Mister Craig and he smiles this time, hands the boy the valet key to the Aston, mounts the steps.

This has all happened before and will happen again. The thought, clichéd as it is, makes him unusually cheerful. He chuckles, steps into the elevator, takes it up.

She doesn't expect him and he doesn't announce his presence. He stalks her, though he doesn't think of it that way. He surveys her. He watches. He...does recon. She seems happy. Vibrant. Content. For a moment he wants to leave before she can see him but she catches his eye across the room and her mouth gapes open, in a small oh of surprise before she smiles at him, crooks a finger and then drops the expression, apologizing to the group she stands with before she quits the room towards the smoking patio.

"Hello, James," she drawls, the cigarette dangling from her fingers. She blows smoke out of the corner of her mouth, smiles.

"Eva," he murmurs. "You look well."

"I am," she says cheerfully, resting her arms against the railings. The patio is shockingly empty. He wonders, for a fleeting moment, if this has all been arranged.

"I got your invite," he says finally.

"And refused it." She laughs, stubs the cigarette out.

He nods, smiles, casting her a sideways glance. "Indeed."

"Well," she says, pushing herself back and stepping towards him. "Good luck."

He rights himself, turns to face her. "You too." He leans down, presses a kiss to her jaw, her cheek and she allows it before sighing.

"You know where to find me," he says.

"Always."

Her laugh follows him back into the room. He pauses for a moment, shakes his head. He smiles. He goes forward.

They’ve met.


End file.
